Who’s deceiving who?
A USAToday article of March 23rd in the Movies section spotlights two films that portray real-life scams. Color Me Kubrick stars Jon Malkovich as Alan Conway, “a gay, alcoholic Londoner who decided to impersonate the Brooklyn-born, three-times-married Kubrick in the early '90s to impress conquests and score free booze.” Screenwriter is Anthony Frewin, Kubrick’s long-time former assistant.
In the Hoax, Richard Gere plays Clifford Irving, a “writer and ladies’ man” who inveigled an ungodly sum (advance) from McGraw-Hill Publishers by claiming authorization to write Howard Hughes’ autobiography. “Phony interviews and purloined documents” supported the hoax. More intriguing still, portions of the false (unpublished) tome purportedly played a role in the Watergate scandal.
But neither Conway nor Irving succeeded on his own. Each was aided and abetted by “unwitting” accomplices:
Unlike Conway's scams, screenwriter William Wheeler says Irving's swindle was a complicated hoax... "A hoax demands an audience. Irving was an actor in his own performance art," he says.The deceptions reflect the times. Celebrity worship, '90s-style, enabled Conway's trickery, even though he didn't look, sound or act anything like the actual Kubrick. "Because they were touched by the hand of fame, they believed," Frewin says.
...As for Irving's gullible editor and publisher, "There was a lot of greed and hypocrisy involved," Wheeler says. "They wanted it to be true." (emphases added)
Because they were touched by the hand of fame, they believed...
How true it is that many fall for some sort of faux Christianity or for the wiles, intentional or not, of a “Christian personality” because they are touched by the hand of fame. They become, in effect, partners-in-crime.
They wanted it to be true...
One of the rationalizations put forth against Christian belief is that people only believe in a loving Creator God because they want it to be true. (How many of those who claim this examine their own motivations...?) But this charge doesn’t hold up: who truly believes that she’s an abject sinner incapable of anything but rot outside of God’s purposes and redemption in Jesus Christ because she wants it to be true?
It’s those who want to believe that God will heal them of every ill, here and now, if they only can muster the faith or jump through the proper hoops, that are in trouble. Or who want to believe that God would have them rolling in cash and other worldly riches (prestige, or whatever). They’ve fallen for the classic hoaxes, the ones as old as time. (and we know who's the Scheister behind those.)
There are those who don't recognize the false gold of certain glitter, and those who do yet give themselves over to it anyway, perhaps for want of a better alternative or lack of faith in any other alternative. Or who simply don't care. Then there are those who believe mistakenly that they can distinguish the false from the true. Or don't recognize that something they hold dear glitters falsely. That's the plight of the Pharisee.
But none of us is immune to sham. Once we recognize the big ones, then there are more subtle ones to contend with. And ever onward.
The gospel, however, promises to renew our minds and transform our values. As this happens, we come to recognize things for what they are -- sham, or the real deal. The true gain. And that's no con.
