RNS Oscars: 10 movies from 2020 with spiritual angles you may have missed
These films caught hold of some truth about faith or glimpsed the spiritual in the stories they told.
April 23, 2021
(RNS) The most blatantly spiritual title of 2020, Pixar’s “Soul” turned out to be a bait and switch. With inventive, almost casually brilliant animation, Pixar invented a “before life” realm where souls have to earn their ticket to Earth. The cosmological setup and the nature of the soul are prime subject matter for religious themes, yet there’s nary a nod to religion, just Disney-Pixar’s patented brand of self-realization.
podcast) and Lindsay Graciela Perna (director of the short documentary
Texas Monthly dedicated to Selena) are just a few of the talented and influential Latinas who are keeping the lights of Selenidad burning bright.
The work created by this new generation of Latinas many of whom were children or not yet born when Selena died is evidence of the ways that, for so many Latinos, Selenidad is our cultural inheritance, something we pass down, a mode of making do and evidence of the creative ways we ve endured. For communities who mostly do not possess generational wealth and who are often divided across national lines by forces of global capitalism, Selenidad is our precious community heirloom that cannot be so easily confiscated. An inheritance treasured enough to require safeguarding and capacious enough for all of us to lay claim to it.
Fans with a photo of Selena during a ceremony honoring her in 2017. Over the decades since her death, Selena s legacy has become even more profound than writer Deborah Paredez ever anticipated. Credit: AFP via Getty Images
Selena At 50: Preserving And Protecting A Precious Legacy By
at 5:00 am NPR
This week marks what would have been the 50th birthday of Selena Quintanilla Perez, the popular musical superstar known by her legions of fans simply as Selena. Though she s been gone for over a quarter century, she seems more popular than ever. Why is it that 26 years after her death at age 23, Selena is experiencing such a remarkable revival? And has she ever really been that far from our thoughts or our playlists?