The movie Corrina, Corrina was on television this past Sunday evening. I'd never seen it before but, being a fan of Whoopi Goldberg, I decided to watch it. It's a good film, pretty emotional in spots, and if you've never seen it, you might want to rent it.
On the other hand, if you're very sensitive about the portrayal of atheists and the handling of atheist-related issues in the media, you might want to save yourself some heartburn and rent something else instead.
In the film, Ray Liotta plays Manny Singer, a man whose wife dies, leaving him to raise his seven-year old daughter Molly pretty much by himself. Whoopi plays Corrina Washington, who is hired as a sort of maid/nanny/etc., and she and Molly (played by Tina Majorino, who played the title role the recent TV production of Alice in Wonderland) quickly become friends.
Manny and his never-seen wife are both atheists. Corrina isn't. And when she tells Molly that her mother is up in heaven with the angels, Manny politely tells her that such fantasy stories are not appreciated.
I was pretty happy to see this, and thought I might actually see some decent portrayals throughout the rest of the film. Sadly, I was to be disappointed.
Not only does Corrina continue to feed her fictions to Molly, but at the end of the movie, after an angry tiff between Manny and Corrina, the film does something I'd hoped it wouldn't. It actually pissed me off.
After being rebuffed by Corrina, Manny starts talking to the heavens, asking for help in rectifying matters. Corrina, surprising Manny by joining him, asks who he's talking to. "Your new friend?" she says, meaning God, of course. And Manny nods his head.
I about barfed.
Much as I liked all of the movie not dealing with the God issue, this one scene infuriated me.
This film deals with a very important subject: how to help a young child come to grips with the death of a parent. Unfortunately, the message portrayed is: a child must have a belief in God in order to deal with it, and atheists really do believe in God, deep down.
I found these messages to be insulting and disappointing, to say the least.
Maybe one day we'll see popular movies commonly featuring atheists who are not "lost" in the world, who deal with things just fine and don't need some hokey "conversion" at the end to make everything okay in their lives.
