One of my quirks is a curiosity about the real life moral characters of actors who play significant roles in movies I like. I have this naive but stubborn assumption that if an actor or actress plays a part in a morally moving story, that the person must, at least to some extent, endorse the lessons in the story and be shaped by them. How could any of the main actors in The Passion of The Christ not have been deeply changed by that story? How could anyone who played in Hotel Rwanda ever be tempted to be racist? How could Sandra Bullock or Tim McGraw fail to see the profound importance of family and sacrificial giving after playing in Blindside?
But this is, of course, a dumb and consistently false assumption. A good case in point is the Actress Tilda Swinton, who plays the part of the White Witch in the film versions of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. If ever there were a series of fiction stories that convey the eternal importance of real virtue, of good sense, honor, and purity, and most of all of Christ, it is The Chronicles of Narnia. Though the movies (especially Prince Caspian) didn’t do full justice to the original books, it’s still hard to understand how anyone could play a main role in these stories and yet, on a personal level, reject the most basic ideas the author’s life was built upon. But Miss Swinton does this with gusto. She lives in Scotland with John Byrne, the father of her children (one of whom is ironically named Honor). And travels with and sometimes lives with her partner/boyfriend Andro Kopp. Though living in the same house, Swinton and her children’s father are not married, but are said to be good friends, even though the he is aware of her relationship with the boyfriend.
I saw her on Charlie Rose recently, and she seems to be an energetic, optimistic, happy person. Apparently a lifestyle of open marriage “works” for Ms. Swanton. And this raises an important question for Christians. What do we have to say to those of a libertarian mindset who suggest that if a certain behavior or lifestyle makes someone happy--even though the behavior has traditionally been understood to be perverse and immoral--we should live and let live and simply appreciate the fact of another’s happiness, as long as that happiness doesn’t infringe on someone else’s well being?
MM
