Buried

Girl 27 is a documentary about Patricia Douglas who as a 17 year old movie extra found herself buried in a horrendous shroud of deceit and sexual violation that not only robbed her of her innocence but shattered her life into shards of ill fate. Thinking she was an extra on a new film the young Douglas discovered she was part of 100 girls hired to entertain at a wild salesmen party sponsored by MGM studios. This was the studio’s way of saying thanks to these salesmen who had made MGM the only successful studio in 1937. After being held down and forced fed from the abundant source of MGM supplied liquor, Douglas stumbled outside to purge her stomach of the unwanted intruder only to find she was followed by a salesman who ultimately violently defiled the youth. After a grand jury trial being dismissed and a federal court appeal buried by an attorney who was in MGM’s pocket, the young Douglas found she couldn’t fight the studio giant. MGM even paid her mother off with hush money. Her case was buried but more tragically her life was buried until a journalist and film director inadvertently stumbled across it while researching a book on Jean Harlow.

We would like to think that life is more like David and Goliath where the little guy fells the giant but all too often the malevolent magnates of life crush the innocent under their mammoth resources. “You can’t fight city hall,” we regale as we acquiesce to our self imposed retreat. O, we believe that the bigger they are the harder they fall but we’re convinced that they hardly fall. Patricia Douglas is both victim and reminder of the triumph of injustice and the reign of corruption. She’s not an exception but a tragic reminder of how dark is the degradation of mankind. So, do we curl up in a ball and wait for the Second Coming? Doesn’t Paul say something about being more than conquerors? Now, let’s put the fight back in the dog!

The cross is a reminder that one can take that which is devised for destruction and turn it into an emblem of victory! What makes the difference is how one views the world. If our fate is circumstantial or scripted by the master of the moment then truly we will be victims and not conquerors. However, if our destiny has been shaped by the divine then as Paul simply puts it, “If God is for us who can be against us (Romans 8:31)?” In God’s hands we find death leads to life, last puts us first and when buried we are raised! Does this mean we are invincible or that Giants won’t crush us beneath their weight? Hardly… but it does mean, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known (Luke 12:2).” Why? Because God is in charge… even on a cross! -DAN