Joy Brackett: Outside Reading (Big Fish: Fact or Fiction)

This is CultureWatch article published on damaris.org by Sophie Lister and is entitled "Fact or Fiction?" This article discussed the movie Big Fish that we viewed in class. When going deeper into myths and parables, this article helped my understanding of it even more. As seen in the movie, myths tell us more about the real than real life itself. This is because it makes emotional rather than literal sense. The stories have values and appeal to us emotionally. Being such emotionally driven beings, myth is important to us and understanding ourselves and the world even better than logistical facts would. This idea plays with fact. The movie's play on fact can be found either liberating or frustrating by the reader. The most interesting part of this article was found in the conclusion in the last paragraph. Stories are valuable but in certain circumstances, it is important to understand fact. Many consider religion to be fictional and used for comfort. This is not how it is presented in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 15:13-19 states, "If Christ has not been raised, than all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless...if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world." Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are factual and truth matters here. The hope offered does not matter on their own apart from his life, death, and resurrection.