One thing that absolutely shocked me in watching it, though, is the racial politics that exist beneath the surface at various points of the movie. A lot has changed (thank God) since 1941, and it makes some parts of the movie utterly shocking and embarrassing. One particularly clear example of this is a scene early in the movie when the circus train stops to allow the workers (along with the elephants) to set up the big top. The workers are all dark skinned, stalwart men with blank, dark faces. Blank faces! They have no lines, no names, nothing; they're just blank faces engaged in manual labor (alongside animals!), singing a song about being happy to work. You can watch it here. In 1941 this may have been an acceptable standard (dark skin men do all the work, along with the animals, while the other white characters perform the speaking roles), but in 2011 it is so shocking that I now skip this scene so my son doesn't have to be exposed to this horrific racial chraracterization.
As awful as that is, though, I find in it an important lesson for reading/watching "texts" from different time periods. Cultural assumptions change, and we must account for those changes, otherwise we miss the meaning of these texts. I think all of us would agree that if possible, this scene should be updated, as we are living in a much better world thanks to the struggles of so many who worked/fought/died to show how utterly ridiculous those stereotypes are and how utterly offensive it is to incorporate them into a children's movie. However, Dumbo, for all its blatant racism, is still a great movie, with much in it from which my son can learn. I'll continue to skip that scene, but I want him to watch the movie, as I think it teaches some really important lessons.
When we turn to the Biblical text, though, some people get a little nervous about the same act of translation. Now we're dealing with a text that was written thousands of years ago with cultural assumptions far different from our own. The text grows out of a racially-charge, patriarchal, misogynistic, homophobic, etc., etc., etc. world. I would argue there are scenes far more offensive in the Biblical text than the big-top-setup scene from Dumbo. So shouldn't we be involved in a similar act of translation? Shouldn't we account for the cultural differences (and cultural improvements) between the world of the author and our world? Might we even "fast forward" certain scenes, so that we don't miss the valuable lessons, but we do miss the utter racism/sexism/etc.?
I argue that we not only should be involved in this same act of translation, but we already are. When we read passages like, for example, 1 Timothy 6:1 or 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, we react viscerally like I did to the work scene in Dumbo. We want to "fast forward" these texts. And yet, tradition and notions of Scripture lead us to resist that urge. Unfortunately, they have led us to resist so strongly that we often re-establish the horrific stereotypes and points of view that are far removed from our current cultural setting. And so, as a result, the Christian community becomes a reactionary community, standing as one of the few institutions actively trying to return to certain cultural distinctions that other parts of our society (including parts of the church) have worked so hard to remove.
Now, the other side of the argument is the slippery-slope argument ("But wait, once you start letting our culture dictate how we read Scripture, aren't you giving culture the authoritative voice, and not the text? Aren't you a cultural relativist? I'm okay, you're okay..."). No. That might be a danger if the radical freedom and equality which our society is starting to (very slowly) realize weren't so darn consistent with a) what most of Scripture says and b) what the figure at the center of our faith preached. I'm not making the argument that we throw out Scripture and let society dictate our Christian morality. I am suggesting, though, that our experience with others in our society has to be a part of the hermeneutical conversation, and getting to know the experiences of others, and allowing the voices of others to be heard, can be a helpful reminder that the Paul of Galatians 3:28 is a heck of a lot more authoritative than the Paul of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.
So, I'm going to keep watching Dumbo, but skip over that one scene. And I'm going to keep reading Scripture, but there are parts I will reject. In reading and watching, and in both cases enjoying, I'm not going to shut off my brain from considering the experience of the world around me in helping me determine what to enjoy and what to reject. Praise be to God that he knew this would be a difficult hermeneutical task, and so he gave me that Holy Spirit as advocate to help me along (John 14:25-31). By listening to the advocate, I think I'll be better prepared to avoid the woes cast by a fellow named Jesus Christ, who got pretty angry with those around him for not considering the "weightier matters of the law": justice, mercy, and faith (Matthew 23:23-24).
