I recently watched a sci-fi film, “Midnight Special”, not to be
confused with “Midnight Express” which is what I kept calling it, serving to
befuddle everyone with whom I shared this information. In the movie, there is a young man with
special powers of some sort who may or may not be an alien or a messiah or
something equally spectacular and implausible.
The young man is a member of a cult, but is kidnapped by his father
(also a cult member) and a random state trooper, who “saw the light” which came
out of the young man’s eyes. The cult
was located in West Texas and I am assuming was supposed to be based on the Branch
Davidians at Waco, you know, before Janet Reno put the hurt on ‘em.
Have you ever
noticed the women in these cults whether on TV, in the movies or on the actual
news all wear the same dress; a high-necked modified shift with a pointed
collar and jaunty puffed sleeves made a bit more uptight by trailing all the
way to the sinful wrist where it buttons so as to allow the toil and drudgery I
imagine is required? They are, however,
allowed a veritable rainbow of color which the men are not, one of the myriad
reasons not to join.
From what I have
read, cult members are not to be of this world and anything causing undue attention
has no place in a community with very strict rules about hair volume and living
arrangements. During the scene where all
the members are loaded onto school buses and transported to the local high
school to be interviewed about their interactions with and knowledge of the young
man, whose name escapes me.
During the scene, a thought occurred to me concerning
the original seamstress who designed this dress. Did she feel it worthy of ubiquity? Was she the original sister wife? Was her husband the original prophet? Did he like it and proclaim it to be the “dress
of their people”? Was she specifically tasked
with designing the dress? Was this an original
pattern? Was it a McCall’s pattern that
she modified into what I call Subservient Sister Wife? And if this was her original design, was she
allowed a demure acknowledgement of her legacy?
If so, did she handle the attention with humility ? Did she demonstrate the proper degree of self-effacement or was she banished due to pride, exiled
to life in our society? If she is among
us, is she the person who designs Loretta Lynn’s Grammy dresses? You don't agree? Well, then you explain her choices.
Oh, and the movie
was good, too. Weird, but good.
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