Category: A Spiritual Look At All Forms Of Entertainment…

I grew up watching a funny sitcom named Family Ties that I’m sure many people around my age still remember fondly. Having first aired in September of 1982 and running all the way through May of 1989, the family show starred a young and healthy actor by the name of Michael J. Fox, who played a boy named Alex P. Keaton. During it’s run, he went on to garner three Emmy’s and a Golden Globe for his acting in the show. And for all those who weren’t watching him in it, they probably came to know his name anyway when he appeared during the same period of time in Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future Trilogy as Marty McFly. As his career’s success story continued to rise, unbeknownst to everyone else, he we diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991.

In the years that followed his initial diagnosis, Michael J. Fox did what most would probably do in his shoes after receiving that news, he went on with his life as best as he could and continued acting. Over the next five years he pursued his movie career and worked in over 15 of them, of which one of them, Doc Hollywood, is on my list of all-time favorites. By 1996, Fox went back to his roots and got a lead role as Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty in the primetime television show Spin City, which quickly became a hit. During his four years on the show, while his health continued to decline, he earned praise for his role by receiving another Emmy and three more Golden Globe’s. After four seasons with the show, and opening up to the public about his deteriorating health condition, it became too much for him to continue acting in it. But what I have always loved best about Michael J. Fox is that he’s never been a quitter. And while he may have started disappearing from the acting spotlight around 2000, instead of giving up and letting the disease win, he created the Michael J. Fox foundation where he began to dedicate his life to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease.

Since its inception, the Michael J. Fox foundation has gone on to invest over $325 million and become the largest private funder to finding the cure for this disease he suffers from. After six year went by where I only remember hearing his voice in some animated films, he appeared in a commercial in 2006 where he visibly showed signs of the disease. At the time, I can remember being shocked at how Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly had grown up and gotten to that state of health. But I also remember being hugely impressed with how humble Michael J. Fox was in being able to show the world what Parkinson’s really does to a person.

Over the years that followed after that commercial aired, Fox spent most of his time supporting his foundation but had some noticeable cameos in shows such as Boston Legal, Scrubs, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Good Wife. But it is what is happening in his life during this fall television season that has proven to me that Michael J. Fox is an inspiration for anyone suffering form any disease or disability. Beginning this September, he is back to being the star of a family sitcom entitled The Michael J. Fox Show. It revolves loosely around his own life but is based on a news anchor named Mike Henry who initially gives up his career when he’s diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and then later returns to the limelight. I am excited for Fox and hope for the best that his show becomes widely successful as Family Ties and Spin City did because of him. I know at least for me that I’ll be watching as I don’t believe a disease has changed his gift of acting.

It is estimated that seven to ten million people today suffer from Parkinson’s disease and Michael J. Fox is one of them. For someone who had such a widely popular acting career as a young adult, Fox has proven to the world that even with having such a terrible disease, he will never give up fighting and doing what he does best, raising awareness of it, trying to find its cure, and all the while, showing everyone he still has what it takes to be an incredible actor even with all his disease’s limitations.

Michael J. Fox is truly an inspiration to me and I pray that God blesses this show and the rest of his life. And I hope that one day soon, his foundation will find that cure…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Eugene Allen was an African American man who worked at the White House for 34 years under eight different Presidents. And just over a week ago, a movie entitled “Lee Daniels The Butler” was released into theaters portraying his life. Unfortunately, the movie I got to see in the theater was only loosely based upon it.

I’m not sure if I’m just becoming a tougher critic on the films that I’m watching these days in theaters or if my need for “factual movies” to be actually factual is changing my tastes. Either way, this summer has had such movies as The Conjuring and now The Butler that have really taken liberty with true-to-life information and stretched it rather thin. Don’t get me wrong, I felt the movie was done incredibly well in so many different elements. And if I were to base this movie completely on the acting alone, I’d give it five stars. Forest Whitaker, who played Cecil Gaines (the name given to the Eugene Allen character) even well deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, as does Oprah Winfrey who played his wife in the movie. But while the acting was even of that higher caliber for many of the other actors and actresses as well, it was the fictionalized parts of the plot that gave me a less than ecstatic feeling I was hoping for when the movie ended.

The premise of this film does indeed surround the 34 years Eugene Allen served under eight different Presidents. But the beginning of the film that involved a tragic childhood was not factual and neither was the whole storyline about the son named Lewis who was part of the civil rights based movement. And those were only two of the many discrepancies I discovered when I did my research surrounding the real life of Eugene Allen. Ironically, I probably would have gotten that ecstatic feeling I was hoping for if this movie had been a completely fictionalized story. In that case, I would have said it really was a well written script.

I often wonder if Hollywood over fictionalizes these real life stories of people like Eugene Allen because they feel it wouldn’t be interesting enough to make a film be completely or almost completely factual. Would that type of movie have been totally boring and uninteresting if it had been done with Eugene Allen’s life? I don’t think so. I’m sure there are many elements of his life that could have been portrayed accurately and kept the viewers captivated. But sadly, it wasn’t and The Butler was only loosely based on bits and pieces of it.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other movies that have come and gone in the theaters over the years that have been based more upon their factual events in history. _Gandhi, a film based upon parts of the life of Mahatma Gandi, was an example of that. Most of that movie was historically accurate except for a few minor Hollywood differences. And that film is in my collection of movies at home and actually does give me that ecstatic feeling every time I watch it. Even more recent was the release of Fruitvale Station this summer, which portrayed with almost complete accuracy, the last day in the life of Oscar Grant before he was innocently murdered by a transit station officer. It too moved me greatly, but in a different way, and will become one I purchase when it’s released on DVD.

While I am definitely inspired by the life that Eugene Allen lived, I only wish the movie had done a better job revealing his real life events. Regardless, the movie in itself is inspiring in the way his life is portrayed which stands to reason why the theater I saw the film at erupted in applause at the end. I can only hope that Hollywood will make factual films be more factual in the future and a lot less fiction. But if they stay on their current course, then maybe they should make a film based around my life. I’m sure the Hollywood version of my life would have a lot of good drama, and more than the type I ever was known to create…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I own a rather large and diverse collection of DVD’s that have been inspirational to me over the years. One of those happens to be a movie entitled “Pay It Forward”, which stars Kevin Spacey (as Eugene) and a young Haley Joel Osment (as Trevor). The movie’s concept is simple. Trevor is given a class assignment by his social studies teacher, Eugene, to come up with a plan to change the world through direct action. On his way home from school one day, Trevor befriends a homeless man named Jerry, who is played by Jim Caviezel. Through that interaction, Trevor manifests the idea to “pay it forward” by doing a good deed for three people, who in turn must do good deeds for three other people, thus creating a charitable pyramid scheme. The rest of the movie revolves around Trevor’s execution of this plan and the interconnectivity to how it all eventually comes together. Quite frankly, our world desperately needs something like Trevor’s plan to be implemented immediately.

Anger and self-centeredness appears to be on the rise everywhere in our world these days. There is major unrest in Egypt and many unnecessary deaths occurring there. It seems as if people are “going postal” daily and murdering too many innocent lives. And even on a smaller level, I observe many people these days focusing solely on their own needs, wants, and desires, and caring less about the rest of the state of the world. It’s sad and unfortunate that this is happening but it doesn’t have to be. Each of us have the power to turn it around and bring more light and love on this planet by doing our own actions of “paying it forward”.

There are so many opportunities for doing this and yet too many of us rarely make a single attempt to move in this direction. Instead, people appear to be doing the exact opposite like throwing trash out car windows or leaving it behind for someone else to take care of in public places. There’s those who are constantly cutting others off or not let others in on roads that they’re driving in. Some aren’t doing an action as simple as holding a door open for someone following right behind themselves. Others watch as people are short on change or a few dollars to make a purchase in front of them when they have the amount in their own pocket to contribute. All of this is just plain selfishness and self-centeredness. We let our brains tell us we don’t have the time, money, or energy to help out or we allow our constant state of stress and anger to leave us in the state of mind to not giving a crap about anyone else.

Ironically, all of this can be turned around in a millisecond by doing a few random acts of kindness every single day. They don’t have to be as pronounced as Trevor did in Pay It Forward either. It can be as simple as cleaning up that trash left behind by someone else. This is one of the things I try to do quite often, such as in a public bathroom, when I see paper towels strewn across the floor, I take the time to clean the mess up. People notice these types of actions and it affects their own hearts, minds, and souls where it often inspires them to doing the exact same thing.

Try doing anything that is a random act of kindness. Buy a person’s coffee in front or behind you in a line that you are waiting in, even if you only have a small amount of money on you. Place that loose change or even a dollar or two in that homeless person’s cup regardless of what you think about them. Allow a person in a store to go ahead of you in a line even when you’re brain tells you that your in a rush. Take the time to ask someone crying near you, even if you don’t know them, if they need any help or even better, a hug. What this world truly needs is for all of us to begin paying it forward by doing things like this. Every kind act that any of us ever do is always being noticed regardless if we are seeing it or not. I believe God constantly keeps a watchful eye out for things things like this and puts things along our path all the time that could use our charity.

I encourage any of you reading this to take a moment, breathe, and try to do one random act of kindness today that can begin your own path of paying it forward. Trevor believed and committed deeply in his soul to his quest in doing so, and you can to. Begin to do your own version of paying it forward and not only will you feel better, but the world will move one step closer to being a more loving and peaceful place to exist in.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson