Camp Rock was an incredible film that shows the struggle in youth to find value, learn who they are, and decide who they want to be. This movie follows a young girl as she becomes who she is meant to be, a singer not afraid to hide her face anymore. By the end of the movie, the entire cast comes together as a community, giving up their claim to talents as a means to feel value and instead become one voice as a means to enable each other to feel value.
The basic plotline is this (spoiler warning to all who wish to see this film): We meet Mitchie, a beautiful young girl from a non-famous family who can sing better than any kid I ever met. She wants to go to "Camp Rock," a camp for young musicians, but her family can not afford to send her. However, her mother's talents as a caterer come in handy and she gets to go to camp because her mother will be the camp chef.
Once she is at camp, Mitchie wants to be popular, as many young people do. She wants to fit in with a famous singer's daughter and tells the other kids her Mom is president of "Hot Tunes" China (probably a play off MTV or VH1). Everyone thinks she is fabulous and she is forced to keep up this lie throughout the film in order to keep her "value" to these famous kids.
When her lie is revealed, Mitchie realizes her value as a person does not come from having connections to fame but her value as a person comes from being who she was meant to be. She decides to stand up, take responsibility for her lie, and not hold back who she really is anymore. She refuses to be anyone's back up singer and in the words of another girl at camp "screams until there's nothing left" for she cannot be ignored anymore.
Mitchie's main song, "This is Me," says, "I've always been the kind of girl that hid my face, so afraid to tell the world what I've got to say. But I have this dream, right inside of me, I'm going to let it show. It's time, to let you know... this is real, this is me. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be now, gonna let the light shine on me. Now I've found who I am, there's no way to hold it in. No more hiding who I want to be, this is me." Excellent lyrics soaked in ontology.
For a kid's film, I was super impressed. It has a lesson that perhaps us good church folk need to hear more often. Our value is not found in what we do. Mitchie's value was not found in the fact she could sing. Mitchie's value was not found in her fake connection to fame. Her value was found in learning who she really was and being that person. And had this been my film, I would have added... and we learn who we are when we learn WHOSE we are.
Almost as interesting of a character to observe as watching Mitchie, was watching the famous singer's daughter (who ran the camp with her popularity campaign). We watch as she appears to feel as if she has no value because her mother is too busy to even speak to her on the phone. So she finds her value by taking it away from Mitchie (and others). She grabs onto this false sense of value by taking value away from another person.
How many times do we see that one in the halls of school or even in the foyer of churches? Someone will feel so small and insignificant based on how people treat them and since they feel as if they have no value, they will do whatever they can to gain that value back. Often, they act just like the pretty girl in this movie, and they take value from others to gain a false sense of value for themselves.
So when we feel like we have lost our value based on how we are treated by others, what should we do? In this movie, in the "Final Jam" scene, all the characters come together as equals, and become one voice. They sing the song "We Rock" together and become more than they could have ever been alone. They become a team, not taking value away from each other based on their weakness but instead empower each other in spite of their weaknesses. Powerful lesson.
Perhaps those of us in the Church should watch this film a few times. We must remember we become who we are meant to be, as children of God, when we give up our claim to the things we do as a means to establish our worth or value. We become who we were meant to be when we give up trying to find our value by taking it from others.
Our value comes from God's approval of us and our offering back to God by being who we were meant to be as the people of God. And it is in the community, particularly the community of faith, that we empower each other in the midst of our weaknesses as we become one voice (the Lord's voice) to become more then we could have ever made ourselves.
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