I thought I’d begin the year with a brief movie review and then make a couple of applications for 2021. I can’t fathom watching something without the purpose of taking apart one scene or twenty and fleshing out its significance. In this case, my wife, daughter, and I watched “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” last night as we bid adieu together to 2020 at around 9ish like old folks that we are. This may be my third and the Brito women’s fifth time watching it. Every time we embark on this 1954 classic, we find ourselves enamored by colors and symbols, and dances. In my estimation, the movie is a classic paradigm of Hebraic culture; the kind that leads feminists to insanity and makes progressive evangelicals tweet a picture about their chai lattes due to patriarchal overtones. But alas, this work is what we need in 2021.
For those unhappy folks who have never seen this great work of art, the story is set in 1850 Oregon. Before Oregon became the land of sissified ethics and cultural iconoclasts, there were some men and some women who treasured marriage and courtship and their respective roles. The movie portrays a time when women were strong outside the house and inside and men aggressively sought the good.
When Adam Pontipee–the country bearded baritone–comes to town, he comes to find himself a wife. He is looking for a woman to cook and clean and serve him in his large land estate. He finds himself the assertive and beloved Milly, who is eager to start a new life. They are properly married on the same day and make their way back to the backwoods where Milly intends to cook and clean for one man–her new husband.
When she arrives, she discovers that Adam has six additional brothers. Without spoiling too much, all six brothers carry biblical names. Adam is the oldest–as the first man–and Gideon is the last–who plays a decisively charming, but yet prophetic role. The entire scene is entertaining and full of remarkable pieces of subtleties. And of universal acclaim, the choreography is unmatched in talent and beauty.
Milly (Jane Powell who is magnificent!) plays the role of Lady Wisdom seeking to instruct her new tribe. Those around her–her new husband and brothers-in-law–drink from the well of wisdom and find meaning and purpose, which includes fighting for their brides. The kidnapping of the women is a form of fighting for what rightly belongs to them, and the entire story mirrors in some way the Judges (19-21) narratives when the Benjamites are creatively allowed to abduct the maidens dancing at Shiloh. Again, this part will gladly give post-moderns woke strokes.
The ladies are fully aware of where they belong and refuse to go back to their old ways once they see and know what manhood truly is to look like. Adam, the first-born, struggles to listen to Lady Wisdom in various cases and suffers, and the consequence is to leave the house. In the Bible, Wisdom preserves order and seeks the good of Eden. But for the Edenic home to endure, Adam and his band of brothers must seek the good by protecting and placing their women under the benediction of the priesthood, Reverend Elcott (played by Ian Wolfe).
The entire picture is replete with symbolic overtones as priestly colors adorn the screen and Adamic figures seek to reform their ways to the ways of Wisdom. Adam must reconcile with his bride and restore the house.
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2021 is like a stubborn man wanting his way and refusing to listen to Lady Wisdom. This past year served as an Adamic marker in history. We refused to listen to the Word of God and kept getting kicked out of the house, sometimes willingly. But 2021 calls us to listen to Milly and enter into the Church’s rousing dance.
In an age when men give up their callings for the mundane and childish choosing to grow old in their aloneness, God calls them to seek out a wife and start a house. I think it was Jim Wilson who once said that when a man reaches a certain age as single, his duty is to ask her name; which is to say, find a woman and ask her hand in marriage. Perfectionism is the enemy of the duty-bound Gospel man.
We have behaved in 2020 as if dancing and feasting were biblical options. But they are not. If we cannot raise a barn and chop wood, we should raise raucous laughter around a fire and tell stories until next December 31st. Perhaps the lesson I most gleaned from “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” is that sitting around waiting for life to provide you with delicacies is our mode of operation. But the Gospel says, “Take up the cross.” Jesus did not sit around in heavenly peace. He came down to get himself a wife. Unlike the first Adam, he was Wisdom personified. We better use this year to listen attentively to his instructions.
