Episode 27: Modest Pixie Dream Girl

Young Adult Movie Ministry

Details, credits, errata: This week we subjected ourselves to Adam Shankman’s 2002 surprise hit romantic drama A Walk to Remember, an amazing time capsule of a movie about the importance of gender roles but not exactly about Christian complementarianism? It’s confusing. Don’t worry, we get into it. Our guest is Katelyn Beaty, founding editor of her.meneutics, former managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of A Woman’s Place. She was terrific and has many wise insights into what on earth is going on that this movie kindasorta refuses to acknowledge for the sake of mass-market appeal, and Alissa knows all and sees all about the development of the “inspirational” film industry in this movie’s wake. Sam is also on this episode.

Our lead image is Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing, an almost unbearably erotic roccoco masterpiece.

Our theme song is Louis Armstrong and His Hot 5’s Muskrat Ramble, made freely available by the Boston Public Library and audio engineering shop George Blood, LP through the Internet Archive. A Walk to Remember is copyright 2002 Warner Bros. Brief audio excerpts are used herein for purposes of review and no other copyright is intended or implied. The lead image on this post is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and The Wallace Collection and used with our thanks. All other material is copyright 2021 Sam Thielman and Alissa Wilkinson.

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