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What's Wrong with Many Faith Based Movies


World Magazine’s Megan Basham really hit the nail on the head in her review of the recent faith-based movie, “Letters to God.”  In the article, she targets what goes wrong with many of these dramas.  Read it and let me know your thoughts.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 5:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.christianmovienews.com Angela Walker

    You all need to see http://www.likedandeliondust.com, coming out on September 24. Though it’s based on a book by a Christian novelist, it’s unlike any other film you’ve seen from Christian producers.

    It’s won 30 festival awards from all across the country, and critics have lauded it. Mira Sorvino and Barry Pepper, the leads, deliver phenomenal performances in a story that doesn’t shy away from tough topics: alcoholism, spouse abuse, and child endangerment.

    It’s a modern-day parable. Check out the trailer and see if it doesn’t change your mind about films from Christians.

  • Angie DeBlieux

    I agree with Megan. Great article! I think that both Hollywood and the Christian movie watching community are missing out by their marketing.

    I did not go see “Couples Retreat” because the previews made it appear to just be crude sexual jokes. I rented the movie with a Christian friend and watched and it was hilarious with a great marriage counseling story and great ending.

    Hollywood missed a LOT of Box Office dollars by not marketing it to a conservative audience and most Christian couples could have used the story to counsel their own marriages. Major faux pas in the industry!

    Marketing to 2 different audiences is not a bad thing. Know your audience and know how to reach them in your marketing.

  • Michael Williams

    As a Christian who writes scripts, and is connected to many in Christian Media, the solution is obvious .  We need to make movies that quit “preaching to the choir ” and reach the lost.  A great little movie that will be marketed to, and seen by the church is what?  Just that!  We need to get out and get dirty.  We need to make movies that gang bangers in South Central, and kids searching for an answer in Dallas will want to go see.  We give them a quality movie with a powerful message that takes them day’s, perhaps weeks later to “find out” they have been witnessed to.  Then they would reflect on what they have seen, and could it change their lives?  Should a “Christian movie” even be marketed as such?  Many non-believers would avoid that label as a drunk would AA.  Jesus didn’t just hang out with “The choir”….neither should “Christian films”.

  • Andy Castro

    “Christian” movies are to nice. It wasn’t nice when my son died. It wasn’t nice when I divorced. It wasn’t nice living in the consequences of my bad choices. It wasn’t nice losing everything I had. And even after re-commiting to Christ, life wasn’t always nice. But I’ve had hope and peace.
    Somehow the “Christian” movie industry needs to show how we have peace and hope in the midst of suffering.

  • Anthony Peterson

    The article touches raises some great points. I recall hearing a theologian explaining why the “woman caught in adultery” passge was omitted from many 3 and 4th generation texts. It was just too controversial – yet its these stories that are most riveting.

    Lets be honest with ourselves, many Old Testament stories would be MA or R rated if put to film.

  • http://www.hongkongudy.com Karl Udy

    I guess I’m not surprised to see how many comments here are focusing on content. I can’t help feeling that this is missing the point a bit though.

    What I found really interesting in the article was that the author’s real life story is possibly more compelling than the story that he made into a movie. That to me seems to be the article’s main point, that we choose to tell a certain type of story where sin and salvation all fit in nicely and tidily. I think perhaps we are more concerned that people might miss the gospel content in the story than that the story connects with the world out there.

  • http://www.LaughingRedhead.com Teresa Roberts Logan

    I agree with Megan – so many Christian movies gloss over the grittiness of real life, to the point the important moments just do not ring true, and seem detached from the reality, the pain, the tragedy which so many

    Taking shortcuts to presenting real stories, in a non-offensive (read: Stepford) way, to please Christian advertisers, is a real enemy to art, story, AND message.

    As an artist and writer, I’m worn out from the litmus tests I hear Christian organizations putting out as far as content, language, etc. We need to GET OVER THE BUBBLE.

    I remember doing a cartoon for a major Christian magazine, and the editors called me laughing and said they loved it, but they were afraid it would offend a major advertiser, so they couldn’t print it. And that scenario is repeated over and over, for much bigger projects than my little cartoon, every single day in The Bubble. Is the goal to entertain the Bubble? Then, hey, have at it.

    If it’s to reach people in say, “the highways and the hedges,” the Christian community, and the money behind the “art” we put out, need to grow some cojones.

  • Nate

    I don’t think the graphic stuff is at all necessary. Look at the list of most successful movies – how many of those have graphic stuff? The key is telling good stories. Then having believable characters that we care about, and telling it as professionally as possible.

    Christian filmmakers often seem so intent on telling “The Message”. Maybe every now and then a movie will need a “message”, but I like the quote by Sam Goldwyn, “If I want to send a message, I’ll use Western Union”.

    Christian filmmakers who want to make mainstream movies – lets be about the business of being really, really good story tellers! THEN the message will be delivered. Often through the lives of the filmmakers as they are making films.

  • osborn4

    This is one reason I like Ted Dekker books. He doesn’t shy away from graphic depictions of evil and doesn’t necessarily tie everything up with a nice bow. There are very messy consequences to sin.

  • Mary Hutchinson

    How true. Megan nailed it. Could it be that we as Christians are so busy trying to paint the Christian life as one without struggle — so that is more attractive to seekers — that we refuse to even look at the reality in our own life that proves otherwise? What I mean is –can we creatively express sin, the seduction of it, without admitting that we’ve been there? It goes back to the concept of John Lynch’s book “TrueFaced”. The masks are on –even in the creative expression of our faith.

  • http://www.LaughingRedhead.com Teresa Roberts Logan

    Apologies for the typo above, the first sentence should read:

    I agree with Megan – so many Christian movies gloss over the grittiness of real life, to the point the important moments just do not ring true, and seem detached from the reality, the pain, the tragedy which so many experience every single day.

  • Headless Unicorn Guy

    The seminal online essay on this subject is “Sex and Death and Christian Fiction” by Dr Simon Morden. I cannot include the link without tripping Phil’s spam filter, but Googling the above title should bring it up.

  • http://rmjcommunications.com/ Rick Wilson

    Great review – and she’s exactly right.

    It’s really simple.  TELL THE STORY.  Don’t sanitize, proselytize, marginalize and minimize.  TELL IT AND KEEP IT REAL!

  • crystal

    To me, faith based movies have not been good. However, I enjoy Tyler Perry’s movies. His characters provide comicrelief but they also have a moral side and his movies cover issues such as domestic violence, taking responsibility and the santity of marriage. In the bulk of his movies, the film ends with the main characters usually getting married.

  • s77

    Quoting Teresa Roberts Logan

     

    <cite>

    …the tragedy which so many Taking shortcuts to presenting real stories, in a non-offensive (read: Stepford) way, to please Christian advertisers, is a real enemy to art, story, AND message. As an artist and writer, I’m worn out from the litmus tests I hear Christian organizations putting out as far as content, language, etc. We need to GET OVER THE BUBBLE. I remember doing a cartoon for a major Christian magazine, and the editors called me laughing and said they loved it, but they were afraid it would offend a major advertiser, so they couldn’t print it. And that scenario is repeated over and over,

    </cite>

    so so true. In fact, there is a mindset within the big-wigs of Christian media and Christianity that they have to define for us the “official” definition of “real Christians” from families, politics, and “whirledview” (worldview). It has gotten to the point where if Christian books, devotionals, etc. deviate from what is supposed to be our “official whirledview”  it is viewed by the Christian media as either “offensive”, “non-existent”, “unreal”, or “inferior in Christian walk” and never see the light of day unless you go out and get your own web page and speak it yourself.

     

  • freethinker

    Ok, you want reality in Christian films?
    Then put some money down, hire ILM, and bring to the silver screen Mary K Baxter’s “A Divine Revelation of Hell” in all its hellish splendor, including the scene where a Christian woman and a pastor ended up in hell an the reasons why.
    If that’s not real enough for all of you, then you’re wasting your time. Show them, both believers and heathens, where unrepentant sin will eventually take them.

  • Headless Unicorn Guy

    Estus Pirkle & Ron Ormond already did it.

  • Headless Unicorn Guy

    I’m worn out from the litmus tests I hear Christian organizations putting out as far as content, language, etc. We need to GET OVER THE BUBBLE.

    This is why on both Christian genre writers’ lists, I’m the most vocal advocate of mainstreaming. Get out of Christian Bizarro World and go into the mainstream SF, Fantasy, Mystery, Horror, etc markets. Where there’s no need to be constantly looking over your shoulder for anything that might possibly offend the Professional Weaker Brethren/Stepford Church Ladies who run the show inside the bubble.

    It has gotten to the point where if Christian books, devotionals, etc. deviate from what is supposed to be our “official whirledview” it is viewed by the Christian media as either “offensive”, “non-existent”, “unreal”, or “inferior in Christian walk” and never see the light of day unless you go out and get your own web page and speak it yourself.

    i.e. “Ees Party Line, Comrade.”

    How does that differ from artists & writers in Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, or today’s North Korea? Where “Socialist Realism” or “National Socialist Realism” or “Juche Realism” meant all artists/writers had to turn out propaganda for the regime or else?

  • john

    he is so true about how the so -called christian little oworld wunt to clean everythings up to their way not god’s way.i came from a long way around the block (not caring if there is or not a god to being used by god heal the sick )and the joke will be on the those who have thier blinders on .jesus did not run away from life yet chritiant is the biggest joke in the eyes of the world.with all this rules and ways to be saved.funny thing if juses came in the building most of the church would walk other way.the world would rather see us live it more than us telling them our piont view. so, game on and you are it.

  • john c

    Here is another article in the same vein by David White from 2005:

    http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=132

  • http://www.condios.com.au Irene Pawlyszyn

    Sorry for the belated response! Working in the Christian film distributorship industry, I see a lot of Christian films – made by lovely people trying to save the lost, but they are preachy. As soon as it gets preachy I know the secular market has just turned it off. So if we want to reach the secular world let the story give the message, with interesting characters, thoughtful script without preaching.

    It’s not whether we put in some cussing or sex scenes etc – it’s good script and characters.

    Look at End of the Spear – a lot of Christians boycotted it because of a homosexual activist actor playing the lead role, and there were complaints that Jesus wasn’t mentioned by name, and there were no scriptures – it wasn’t preachy enough! This is a perfect example – that film was brilliantly done, and the story was all about sacrifice and forgiveness – non-Christians came out of the cinemas full of questions – “why did they do that?”, which led directly to Jesus Christ, without a single scripture being read or preachiness.

    About the homosexual actor – since when have our actors been squeaky clean? Since when have we been squeaky clean? We commit adultery, be mean to people, judge people .. Chad Allen did a great job as did the other actors.

    Christian filmmaking is still in its early days, hopefully we’ll get better at it.

  • http://bobaloofilms.com Kurt deVries

    Dave, well said. I remember the line from that film with Pacino…The greatest gift God gave you was free will…and you all chose me….

    Very chilling, but true.

  • Dave Thomasson

    As unpleasantly graphic that many would feel “The Devil’s Advocate” starring Al Pacino was, I still think it is the best illustrated sermon on the nature of temptation that has been made. It has a very informed insight on how the spiritual world and the natural world interact.

  • Mike

    If the story and acting are strong enough, the sin aspect doesn’t need to be fully or graphically exposed on screen. I think peoples imaginations can do the rest and more if it the more graphic elements are implied. To me they are a distraction from the story line, give me strong emotional acting any day. (that was my opinion before and after becoming a Believer)

  • http://www.indimax.com.au Peter

    Great article. I agree 100%. A question I’d like to put out there and would like to hear Phils thoughts on this as well is, how far do we go in regards to the content that we put in films? Something I’ve been wrestling with is is it ok to put swearing in a film when the bible tells us to keep filthy language from our lips? I have a couple of christian friends who have made films that include some course language. Does it mean because someone is acting it’s ok?
    I’m not being the high and mighty spiritual person here (some of my all time favourite films have lots of bad language), I’m just asking what God would want us to do when it comes to writing our own stories?

  • http://nick5hoe.com Nick Shoemaker

    I agree that often times Christian production companies may feel held to the standard of being family oriented in their products, this should be so. Make a movie for adults. We write books for believing adults (Christian sex books, for example), why can’t we do so in visual entertainment. It doesn’t have to be crude or grotesque, but it should be real.

    A prominent online movie review org gave Avatar less than stellar marks in part because of what they deemed something like humanoid nudity, as well as characters’ alluding to masturbation and other sexual acts. (Keep in mind these characters are NOT believers, and in fact are hardened by the conflict they find themselves in.)

    Believers would do well to stop being ‘offended’ by mere words and start being offended by their own ignorance of the world around them. People talk about and do such things- don’t glorify them, but please do not ignore them either.

    Christ never wrote anyone off on such trivial matters, in fact he went deeper. We cannot love if we do not engage a culture that is crying out in desperation for answers.

  • Dean

    I think one problem is how to display sin/sinfulness/the-harshness-of-reality in it’s true state i.e. cursing, immorality and so on, in a “true” sense without offending the Christian fan-base.

    Is it time for adult (not in the sexual connotation) Christian films? Believers are quick to play the “gratuitous” card but I agree – without the weight of reality the pay off in faith based films is nowhere near as effective.

    Good article.

  • Headless Unicorn Guy

    Dean, I belong to two Christian genre writer’s lists. On both of them, we periodically go round and round on this very subject. Usually in the form of “how much cussing?” (And a lot of the Official Christian solutions to this question are incredibly lame, echoing the point of this thread’ original posting.)

    I go by Stephen King’s take on the subject in On Writing, where he says that a writer has the responsibility to tell the truth to his reader. Even in a fantastic setting or situation, what is mundane and everyday must ring true; wherever the story touches reality, that reality must be true to carry the weight of the fiction. He even uses cussing as an example.

    Another reference is Internet Monk’s archives of late November 2005, specifically the three or four blog postings centered around “Prissy Protestants”.

  • http://www.johncosper.com John Cosper

    A few years ago, I shared a script with a friend that depicted a teen in agony over her parents’ divorce. Like most people who grow up in church, I saw divorce as a BIG EVIL and assumed everyone would see it as the same, huge devastating event that I saw it to be. My friend trashed the script. As a child of divorce, my friend had no sympathy for the main character, whom he saw as a selfish drama queen rather than an individual in crisis. It was an eye opening critique that showed me how far off I was from connecting with the secular world in my writing.

    Until we learn to view the BIG EVILS of life – alcohol, divorce, lying, cheating, etc. – the way the world views them, we will continue to write scripts that come off as naiive and superficial. That doesn’t mean we have to accept these things as “no big deal” and “just a part of life.” It means we need to get into their heads and understand WHY they view these things as such. We have to learn to speak their language if we want them to receive the gospel.

  • island girl

    You know another thing the faith based creative folks miss is the power of great character. Like Sex In The City 2 — it has no plot at all –but women will go and see it because we like (most) of the characters. Its like visiting an old friend.

    Too often the characters in the faith based stuff are cartoons of either Christians or sinners. No one is real. Hard to like.

  • Steve Snediker

    I wish we had more stories of redemption and substitutionary death like “To End All Wars” and even “Gran Torino.”  Sure the violence and language pushes the CHristian prude button.  But how many people emerged from that film and asked “Why would he do something like that?”  Seems like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea were asking the same thing about Jesus?

    I wonder how many true unbelievers/pagans (prostitutes and drunks) that rank and file Christians know and spend time with.  With all due respect to Mr. Nixon, how many does he know? 

    The rub always comes with including a few damn’s and hell’s (and cigarettes, Seagram’s 7 and a double entendre et al)… Suddenly churches won’t show it, support it, or promote it.  It is a cycle of “nothing new under the sun.”

    Good on you, Megan, and on you, Phil.