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In many screenings however, they’ve been balanced by awkward teenage giggles. At the crux of the film, it seems that some people (and, to be fair, not just teenagers) don’t know how to handle their emotions.
A quick recap – The Fault in our Stars is the story of a doomed romance between teenage cancer sufferers Hazel and Augustus who meet and fall in love at a support group. As you might expect from that brief summary, the shadow of death hangs over both the film and the book. It’s a story about death that, and this isn’t a spoiler, features death and people having to deal with death. More tellingly, it features teenagers having to deal with death; the generation of people perhaps least aware of their own mortality are suddenly obsessed with a story that deals with just that.
• Have you seen or read The Fault in our Stars?
• What did you think about it? Did you cry? Did you laugh?
• Why do you think it’s so popular?
• Did it change the way you think about death?
A quick survey suggests that laughing at the wrong moment isn’t a new phenomenon or exclusive to The Fault in our Stars. From Old Yeller through to Titanic, people have been cracking up at inopportune times since the movie industry first embraced ‘weepies’.
• Why do you think people laugh when confronted with moments of on-screen tragedy?
• How do you react to emotional scenes? Do you feel comfortable?
• What are the things you least like to talk about?
• Have you ever talked about death with your friends? Was it easy?
It seems that in a culture which can talk about everything, death remains the ultimate taboo. We can talk about sex, porn, drugs, and racism, but death is the elephant in the room. Even when we talk about death, it’s in an odd, hushed way. The Bible deals with death very differently. Read the story of Lazarus’ death in John 11:1-43 and then discuss these questions as a group:
• What does this tell us about Jesus’ approach to death?
• Read verses 25 and 26. What do you think about what Jesus says here?
• Why do you think death is so difficult to talk about?
• Do you think Jesus’ view on death makes it more or less of a taboo? Why?
