Nuns and Pop Culture

I just saw the movie The Secret Life of Bees. I had read the book by Sue Monk Kidd a while back when it first came out. I loved the book and so I was nervous about seeing the movie because something is always different. But I figured Queen Latifah, whom I adore, was in the movie so it would at least be enjoyable to see her.

Sister Act movies have long been a source of entertainment but also a problem when it comes to communicating who Catholic sisters and nuns really are.

Did you ever hear about the Hollywood actress Dolores Hart, a movie star of the 1950s and 60s. She is purported to have given Elvis Presley his first movie kiss during the movie King Creole in 1958.

I am speechless at the moment. I don’t know if I want to laugh and dismiss this book as harmless humor or cry out in rage at yet another product that perpetuates stereotypes of nuns.

Yesterday I went to a great lecture at Loyola University called “A Question of Habit: The Curious Image of Nuns in Film and Popular Culture” by Professor Bren Ortega Murphy.