From the Sweeney Todd thread:


I poked around a bit looking for an appropriate existing thread to tack on a reply to this challenge, but couldn't find anything obviously right. (I did start an earlier thread about anti-Christian and anti-Catholic films, but I think a more general discussion deserves a new thread.)

Anyway, although the immediate topic of my current post has been delimited by Invisible Man's comments to comprise only positive depictions of Christians or Christianity in recent Hollywood films, I've left the thread title open to much more expansive discussion going forward.

I really should be doing something else at the moment, but I couldn't resist pulling together a quick list of titles that I think at least arguably satisfy the criteria for one or the other of IM's two categories above. I'm sure there are others.

1. Amazing Grace
2. America's Heart and Soul
3. Because of Winn-Dixie
4. Bridge to Terabithia
5. Charlotte's Web
6. Cinderella Man
7. Count of Monte Cristo, The
8. Daredevil
9. Exorcism of Emily Rose, The
10. Ladder 49
11. Lars and the Real Girl
12. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
13. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
14. Nativity Story, The
15. New World, The
16. Patriot, The
17. Return to Me
18. Rookie, The
19. Serenity
20. Signs
21. 6th Day, The
22. Spider-Man
23. Tears of the Sun
24. Walk to Remember, A
25. We Are Marshall
26. World Trade Center
27. X2

Other thoughts?

Thanks, Steven. That's a handy list to have close at hand for those days when I'm getting letters about how good Christians will boycott Hollywood.

Again from Sweeney Todd:


I'm not sure asking whose "job" it is is the most helpful approach. For instance, if instead of Christians we were talking about, e.g., blacks, Jews or women, the relationship of the positive portrayal of such groups to the job descriptions of Hollywood filmmakers would probably be approximately the same, and just as irrelevant to the question of the positive or negative implications of the actual films.

Sophie Scholl
The Last Sin Eater

Hollywood movies, right, Steven? So Sophie Scholl wouldn't qualify.

What about Changing Lanes?

You Can Count On Me?

Well, what is the most helpful approach? I.e., how best to complain about it without confirming the stereotype? I think Nicolosi has a strong argument here: get more Christians involved in making films.

Right, along with The Ninth Day, Millions, Into Great Silence, The Passion of the Christ, The Gospel of John, Therese and others (including The Last Sin Eater, AFAIK).

I thought SDG said he was trying to make this thread broader than that.

What I'm trying to get at with the "whose job it is" question, I guess, is my bemusement over why Christians think they need affirmation from "Hollywood" -- whatever they mean by "Hollywood."

I couldn't agree more (and in fact a quick perusal of the films I listed above confirms that the Christian presence in Hollywood has touched most of them). Just sitting back and grousing isn't going to solve anything. I also agree that more Christians acting more Christianly would be a huge step forward.

But, again, imagine for a moment that it wasn't Christians we were talking about, but some other group. If Hollywood pervasively portrayed blacks in a negative light, would it be a sufficient response to say, "More blacks need to get involved in filmmaking -- and there need to be more upstanding black members of society too"? Or is there a place for invoking social responsibility and basic fairness, and potentially social consequences for unresponsiveness?

Raising Helen

There must be such a place, God help us, but we haven't found it yet. Perhaps Ted Baehr and Bill Donohue are looking for it, but too often with pitchforks in hand.

That's not an apples to apples comparison. The church still has a good deal of clout (despite what the Culture War people try to tell us.) To take on the church is to take on those with power. Lots of films portraying blacks or Moslems or the poor in negative light is to add to the oppression that is so systemic in our society.

For those who see the prophetic witness as speaking truth to power, the church will often be on the receiving end of the message.

Again, I'm not sure "affirmation" is the right word for it. I also wonder -- again -- whether you would be so "bemused" if we were talking about any other group but Christians.

Are Christians human, or not? Are human beings cultural beings? Is cultural identity an integral part of human identity? Are stories and images, and specifically movies, integral parts of our cultural milieu?

Do stories and images influence how we understand ourselves in relation to our world? Do they influence how other people understand their world, including our place in their world? Do they influence expectations, assumptions, attitudes, values? Do expectations, assumptions, attitudes and values matter? Do they affect how people treat one another? Might they be a factor in general receptiveness to other points of view, including the gospel?

Did the socially conscious cinema of the 1960s matter in any way? Did the stereotyped ways that, e.g., blacks were often portrayed in earlier decades matter? Are feminists wrong to question certain aspects of how heroines are often portrayed in traditional children's stories such as fairy tales, or to want contrasting images and portrayals?

Also, aside from The Jazz Singer, Black Like Me, Holiday Inn and several ill-advised versions of Othello, it's hard to play a black character in a movie without being ... uh ... black. Hollywood figured that out long ago. Whereas you've got presumably non-Christian actors playing Christian characters all the time.

For the record, I'm linking to this discussion at my blog, and asking for further input there as well.

Please be specific. What exactly is "the church" in all its "power" in a position to do to Ron Howard and Tom Hanks about The Da Vinci Code?

There must be dozens on the Top100 list...

Then what is?

But we're not, unless you're trying to change the subject.

Not of mine.

How about you answer a few questions before you ask any more?

Here's one, for starters: Is it not sometimes uniquely incumbent on Christians to stand apart from, or aside from, culture -- in a way that is not equally incumbent upon women and ethnic minorities? Are there not unique ways about how Christians should respond to culture? Or are they just another group?

You want to know where I was when I figured out I was watching too many movies and TV shows? On my therapist's couch. I was trying to explain my problems to him by using Deep Space Nine and The Miracle Worker as metaphors. Which didn't work because he hadn't seen them. I realized, "Gee, I need to find a way to explain who I am in my own terms, not in terms borrowed from popular culture."

Does the church need to do something to them for making a crappy movie to make money? Is the church's position in the world damaged by such things? Does anybody believe any of it? To be sure, those who have power will be the target of such things because they are easy targets. The fact that they are targets of such things really underscores that they are so well established that potshots can be taken.

Add to the list: Romero

I dunno, it's your sentence. How about "openness rather than hostility" for starters? What word would you suggest if we were talking about another group?


That strikes me as a tactical response, not a constructive one. To seek to throw light on one subject by citing points of partial comparison is not the same as trying to change the subject.


That seems unlikely, especially considering your later comments about Deep Space Nine and The Miracle Worker. For one thing, a "cultural milieu" is a shared reality; just because you figured out you were watching too many movies doesn't mean you now inhabit a non-cinematic cultural milieu, unless you moved into Amish country or something.


I'll answer yours if you'll answer mine.


Christians are more than just another group. But not less. Just as the Bible is more than human literature but not less, and Jesus is more than a man but not less. All applicable literary and critical principles apply to the study of the Bible, and all applicable sociological principles apply to Christians. They are not sufficient to exhaustively plumb their depths, but they apply.

Yes, there is an extent to which Christians are uniquely obliged to stand apart from and over against culture. But don't let's rush to that as the sole dimension of the issue. St. Paul didn't hesitate to make use of his perogatives as a Roman citizen to have recourse to Roman law. We are Christians first and members of society second, but we are members of society.


That sounds like something I saw in a movie once.

The Simpsons Movie

Paulist Pictures is hardly "Hollywood," methinks.

Did you know Alfonso Cuaron was the assistant director on Romero?

Back to our topic, another question to ponder is to what extent movies and other mass entertainment shape culture, and to what extent they merely reflect it.

If I didn't make this point obvious enough earlier, women and blacks worked in "Hollywood" for decades, playing stereotyped roles, and were thus in a position to help reshape portrayals of themselves in movies when cultural shifts came about. Yes, the films associated with those cultural shifts are significant. But I don't think anyone is prepared to seriously argue that the films caused the cultural shifts.


What it does mean is that I watch very few movies and try not to ascribe too much importance to the ones I do watch.

I'm not There
No Direction Home

Bloody hell! I didn't expect a whole thread on this.

To SDG, I haven't seen (or even heard of) many of the films on your list. There are an awful lot of obscurities. I'm thinking that a lot of them either flopped here, or didn't actually make it across the pond. That doesn't invalidate your list, of course.

Out of curiosity, I ran a few through the IMDB:

"America's Heart and Soul" has no release date listed, and appears to be a TV programme and not a film.
"Because of Winn-Dixie" didn't get an official release and went straight to DVD.
Few here saw "Ladder 49". It got panned by the critics and closed very quickly.
"Lars and the Real Girl" doesn't open until the end of March.
"Return to Me" never opened.
"The Rookie" did open here, but I'm guessing that it flopped (baseball films don't do well here).
"We Are Marshall" didn't open (films about American football aren't popular here).

Maybe the American distributors only let us see the anti-Christian stuff?

I have inevitably seen "Spider-Man", but can't recall any Christian content. Was Aunt May a Christian?

Maybe all that soft focus paganism blinded me to the Christian elements of "The New World"? Or maybe it was Colin Farrell's terrible acting?

I haven't seen "The Patriot" as I refuse to watch films in which Mel Gibson gives vent to his hatred of the English.



I personally wasn't looking for "affirmation". As I said earlier, I have merely grown sick of paying to be insulted, and I was seeking information about "Sweeney Todd". If I went to a bar every night and the barman kept telling me I was a moron or a Nazi, I would quickly stop going to that bar. Maybe that's a bad analogy. I'm somewhat sleepy after a big dinner.

"Hollywood" is a poor term. My apologies. In the UK, a "Hollywood movie" tends to mean anything from American mainstream cinema.



Isn't Ned Flanders generally perceived as a figure of ridicule? In the "Sweeney Todd" thread I wrote: "men of the cloth are usually comedic or crooked", but I guess a postmodern film like "The Simpsons" can have its cake and eat it too.

Flanders, in the larger arc of the Simpsons shows (and certainly in the movie) is a bit ridiculously commited to the rules and trappings of Christianity but a GENUINE and COMPASSIONATE believer.

We should add Dead Man Walking to this list and The Big Kahuna.

Well, before I was a Christian I thought Flanders was an idiot, and I'm guessing there are a lot of non-believers who think the same way.



Not so fast, amigo. "The Big Kahuna" and "Dead Man Walking" were released before 2000 (according to the IMDB, 1999 and 1995 respectively).

I am going down fighting on this!

Or maybe European audiences only want to see the anti-Christian stuff? Interesting how Christian and American themes seemed to dovetail in a lot of films.

Yes, she was praying the Lord's Prayer or Our Father, presumably for Ben (cf. the photo), when the Goblin attacked her. Also you can see a holy water stoup by the front door.


Paging Jeff Overstreet!


Fair enough. (I took issue with this myself in my review.)


That would be an oversimplification. I think it's pretty clear the makers view Flanders' faith with a level of tolerance and respect.

In The Simpsons Movie, Flanders is quite admirable.


I take issue with much of what you've learned from IMDB. Perhaps they didn't open across the pond, but all of these titles were big deals here in the U.S., so they all deserve mention on the list SDG was challenged to compile:



Hmmm. Several of us here saw it in U.S. theaters, and it landed in the Top Ten Most Redeeming Films of 2004 at Christianity Today.



Several people in my office here in Seattle saw it in Seattle theaters.



But it still qualifies as a big Hollywood release that opened after the turn of the millenium, and was heavily promoted with prime-time TV commercials.



It's been a big deal in these parts for months.



Amazing. I know many people who saw it in the theater, and I saw it there twice. It's a wonderful, warm-hearted comedy.



"The Rookie" earned a lot of talk of Dennis Quaid getting an Oscar nomination, even though, alas, he didn't. And the film showed up on a lot of top ten lists. It's one of my favorite movies, one of only two sports-related movies I find myself recommending regularly.



It was huge here.

Sadly, I fear you are right. Sigh. By way of example, many British critics found "World Trade Center" naive because of the Christian stuff.



I agree, and I did mention before that this didn't in any way invalidate SDG's list in my eyes. I just wish that he could have come up with a few more meatier titles.



The Seahawks are huge there too, but I'm willing to bet that the average English slob would go "huh?" if you asked him who they are. Though for some strange reason, everyone here has heard of the Miami Dolphins.

We Are Marshall was "huge" here? In what sense?

SDG, as I noted at Jeff's website, three or four of the films on your initial list of 27 were not produced by major Hollywood studios -- starting with Amazing Grace, which is right at the top of your list. It was written and directed by Brits, produced by a handful of independent companies, and distributed in the USA by the small-ish Samuel Goldwyn company.

Lars and the Real Girl probably also qualifies as an "independent"; it was DISTRIBUTED on your side of the border by MGM, but no major studio seems to have been involved in PRODUCING it.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding was, of course, the top-grossing "independent" film of all time until The Passion of the Christ came along -- so it's not a major Hollywood production either.

And I'm not sure how to classify America's Heart and Soul, since the IMDb indicates that it played in no more than 98 theatres, none of them near where I live -- so it wasn't exactly a major release -- but the IMDb indicates that Disney did co-produce the movie with some outfit called Blacklight Films.

That still leaves your list with over 20, but still.

solishu wrote:
: I'm not There

Produced by eight independent companies, distributed by The Weinstein Company (which is "independent" enough in its own right).

: No Direction Home

No major (or even mini-major) Hollywood studios involved in production OR distribution.

The Invisible Man wrote:
: "Because of Winn-Dixie" didn't get an official release and went straight to DVD.

No, it had an official release. I was on the junket for this one. 20th Century Fox handled this one, both on the production side AND on the distribution side (at least according to the IMDb).

: In the UK, a "Hollywood movie" tends to mean anything from American mainstream cinema.

Great, NOW we just have to debate what the word "mainstream" means.

: Isn't Ned Flanders generally perceived as a figure of ridicule?

Is there anybody on The Simpsons who ISN'T?

DanBuck wrote:
: We should add Dead Man Walking to this list and The Big Kahuna.

Apart from being pre-millennial (boy, that makes me feel old), these films are also "independent" and not produced or distributed by major Hollywood studios. (Unless Gramercy and Lionsgate count as "major" distributors -- but either way, they did not PRODUCE those films.)

Well, FWIW, I found it... something converging with naive too, but not because of the Christian stuff.


I'm not sure what you mean by "meatier." What I understand by "meaty" is something that vanishingly few Hollywood films even aspire to. As I understood it, the question had to do with the positive portrayal of Christians in recent mainstream American studio fare -- if you're going to further limit me to "meaty" films, I guess I can only turn around and ask: How often does Hollywood produce "meaty" ANTI-Christian films?

Incidentally, America's Heart and Soul was a limited theatrical release, poorly marketed, disappeared quietly. I cannot think what is wrong with a country that doesn't have a market for a sweet and charming film like Return to Me.

Plenty of meat in Sweeney Todd!

I don't know that the "church's position in the world" is the primary consideration, but yes, absolutely people have hazily absorbed the idea that, e.g., there is credible evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and therefore that the church has got that wrong, and by extension Christianity is bunk. And so, yes, harm is done, not so much to the "church's position in the world" as to souls for whom Christ died.


I don't buy it. The "targets" here aren't necessarily "powerful" ecclesiastics or religious movers and shakers. They also include ordinary, powerless laity. Early in the discussion I.M. referenced Hairspray, a generally delightful, upbeat film briefly marred by a benighted, intolerant racist middle-class Catholic Christian mom with her rosary beads and Bible reading. She's not "powerful" -- nor is the average middle-class rosary-praying mom who rents this film and sees these tokens of her faith, in a character possibly otherwise not entirely unlike herself (or her own mother), exclusively associated with benighted intolerant racism.

Okay, here's what I get at the IMDB:

Release dates for
Because of Winn-Dixie (2005)

USA 26 January 2005 (USA Film Festival)
USA 29 January 2005 (Santa Barbara Film Festival)
USA 18 February 2005
Italy 24 June 2005
Spain 1 July 2005
Australia 14 July 2005
France 24 August 2005
Germany 22 September 2005
Argentina 16 November 2005 (video premiere)
Hungary 13 December 2005 (DVD premiere)
UK 13 February 2006 (DVD premiere)


Doesn't DVD premiere mean straight to DVD?



Oh, that's easy. You watch mainstream movies in mainstream cinemas where you drink either Pepsi or Coke. You watch non-mainstream movies in cinemas where you drink either red wine or bottled water.



Sorry. That was me being cute. By meaty I simply meant films that were a little bit more um... popular or well known. Films that don't feature American sports, for example.

And that's my last post of the evening, gentlemen, for I am in urgent need of a cuppa.

The Invisible Man wrote:
: Okay, here's what I get at the IMDB:
: Release dates for
: Because of Winn-Dixie (2005)

FWIW, if you want to know whether a film is "independent" or not, you should check under "Company credits", not "Release dates".

: USA 26 January 2005 (USA Film Festival)
: USA 29 January 2005 (Santa Barbara Film Festival)
: USA 18 February 2005

That last date there is the USA release date.

: UK 13 February 2006 (DVD premiere)
:
: Doesn't DVD premiere mean straight to DVD?

Hmmm. I would normally assume it means simply that that is the film's DVD release date. But there is no other UK date listed there, so perhaps the film went straight to DVD in the UK (and a whole year after it opened in North America!). It certainly played in theatres in North America, though.

: : Great, NOW we just have to debate what the word "mainstream" means.
:
: Oh, that's easy. You watch mainstream movies in mainstream cinemas where you drink either Pepsi or Coke. You watch non-mainstream movies in cinemas where you drink either red wine or bottled water.

They sell red wine in cinemas!?

Why not flip the question around? Aside from negative stereotypes lazily exploited for the sake of cheap laughs or cheaper drama, how many films can be listed that make a point of including insulting portrayals of Christians?

From where I sit, I see very very few films in which I see Christian characters behave in ways that Christians I actually know don't actually behave. So I'm not so sure that the films are going out of their way to insult Christianity so much as capturing the behavior of actual Christians on film.

The only exception I can think of in recent memory is Joshua, a small independent film.

So there's my two cents.

I have no idea what "Hollywood" means.

Greg Wright wrote:
: From where I sit, I see very very few films in which I see Christian characters behave in ways that Christians I actually know don't actually behave.

Does the question of whether the onscreen behaviour match the real-life behaviour matter here? I don't think The Invisible Man asked us to come up with 20 post-millennial films that showed Christian characters behaving better than Christians do in real life.

: So I'm not so sure that the films are going out of their way to insult Christianity so much as capturing the behavior of actual Christians on film.

Or, rather, capturing an ASPECT of the behaviour of actual Christians on film. Which then leads to the question of why certain aspects are more captured than others.

Only to the extent that it comes to bear on the question of insult, I think -- which as I understand it was the original question. TIM said he was tired of going to the movies and feeling insulted. If the behavior onscreen mirrors real-life behavior, I'm not sure where (at least on a case-by-case basis) the insult comes from.

If the film seems to be saying "Here's a Christian who is representative of all Christians and he's a moron/asshole/bigot/hypocrite" then I suppose there might be cause for insult. But I just don't see many films that do that. And so I ask... Can we list some examples? Because I can't think of many. Even something like Saved! avoided pure negativity.


And that's why I said, let's turn the question around. Because near as I can tell, it's a presumption that negative aspects are capture more frequently than the positive ones. And I don't think it's an accurate presumption (at least, here in the States).

Did Beyond the Gates get mentioned in the positive example category? No, I see it did not. Very favorable portrayal -- and by no less than John Hurt. And it did get a big promotional push from one of the big distributors, though it was independently produced (by Brits, with Brit stars and a Brit director).

Another thing to throw in the mix if it's been missed: Hollywood sells what people will buy. Demand and supply. If movies with positive portrayals of Christians did boffo boxoffice, then they'd be cranking the suckers out.

So... How do you make an interesting movie about decent Christians? Unless they're becoming martyrs, there's not much to offer in the way of cinematic drama. Any martyr films don't often draw big crowds. So if being a Christian isn't all that entertaining, why are we surprised that films don't feature positively-portrayed Christian characters?

The more general question would be: why do films so predominantly feature characters with negative traits? Answer: because it's more interesting and entertaining. It's what sells.

Greg Wright wrote:

: : Does the question of whether the onscreen behaviour match the real-life behaviour matter here?
:
: Only to the extent that it comes to bear on the question of insult, I think -- which as I understand it was the original question. TIM said he was tired of going to the movies and feeling insulted. If the behavior onscreen mirrors real-life behavior, I'm not sure where (at least on a case-by-case basis) the insult comes from.

Well, by the same token, I'm not sure where the praise would come from, then -- that is, if films that reflect positive Christian behaviour are just mirroring real-life behaviour.

: If the film seems to be saying "Here's a Christian who is representative of all Christians and he's a moron/asshole/bigot/hypocrite" then I suppose there might be cause for insult. But I just don't see many films that do that. And so I ask... Can we list some examples? Because I can't think of many.

Well, the first movie that came to MY mind was The Mist. True, there is one extremely brief moment when a character says to the Marcia Gay Harden character, "I believe in God too, and I don't think he's the asshole you make him out to be," BUT, mere belief in God does not a Christian make. North America is FULL of people who say that they are not "religious", only "spiritual", and Christianity in almost all its forms (even the so-called "emergent" ones) is most definitely a "religion". So, the only discernibly Christian voice in that film remains the Marcia Gay Harden character -- whose death was loudly applauded at the critics' screening I attended (and there were only a dozen or so of us there; I imagine a proper-sized crowd would applaud even MORE loudly).

: Did Beyond the Gates get mentioned in the positive example category?

No, Shooting Dogs is not a "Hollywood movie" by any stretch, even though it was re-named for its American release. It is one of the extremely few non-Canadian films that has actually played in Canada and even gone to DVD before going to the United States.

To return to SDG's question about other groups, I submit that the specific hypotheticals he cites — women, blacks, and Jews — are false hypotheticals. False because they're not hypothetical at all. What each of these groups did to improve the way it was portrayed in films is not a matter of speculation, but of cultural and historical record. If Christians want to improve their lot in film portrayals, perhaps they should find out what these groups did and then imitate it.

Asians and Asian-Americans are the next ethnic minority gathering steam for a Hollywood breakthrough. They're about where African-Americans were just before Sidney Poitier hit the silver screen. Great films like 2046 get seen by dozens of Americans because of the language barrier. Jet Li and Jackie Chan are popular in stereotyped roles; Gong Li and Lucy Liu have had some minor successes; but AFAIK the Asian-American Sidney Poitier has yet to step off the bus. It may happen in the next decade.

Now I may be wrong, but I don't think there's an Asian equivalent to Ted Baehr or Bill Donohue, nor do I think Asians seriously expect to earn more-positive film portrayals by jumping up and down and screaming about it. Again, though, it might behoove Christians, if they want to improve their lot in "Hollywood," to find out what Asians are doing along those lines.

Perhaps I'm guilty of not taking mass entertainment seriously enough, but it has become less important to me as I take on more gray hairs and more responsibilities. I'm just less concerned about these cultural questions than I am about living out my faith from day to day. Besides, we were warned it would be like this.

I think this is rather glib.

"Hollywood sells what people will buy." No. Hollywood tries to sell what it thinks people will buy. Often enough it fails, and the reasons can very easily be far from clear, to them or anyone else. And Hollywood has other driving interests besides the bottom line: Hollywood wants to make successful pictures, yes, but they also want to say things they want to say, things their friends like to hear. They just want to to do it in a way that they can sell to the rest of America and the world.

Certainly, if The Da Vinci Code had flopped and The Nativity Story had been a hit, that might have sent a message. OTOH, The Golden Compass flopped while The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a hit.

Every year the good "Dr." Baehr crunches his personal numbers to "show" that films with a "biblical worldview" or whatever he calls it outperform films with an Eeevil worldview. Michael Medved made the same argument in Hollywood vs. America, etc. Poke all the holes in their arguments and their numbers you like -- and I'll help you do it -- and at the end of the day will it be totally clear to anyone that anti-Christian stereotyping in movies "sells"? Is that why it's in there? Or is it in there just because that's where a lot of people in Hollywood are "at"?

Sure, if contemporary American Christendom were all motivated and militant like in the Legion of Decency days, and a gratuitous dose of religion-bashing was enough to cause some centralized authority to say "Bad" and prompt Christian audiences to stay home in droves, we'd see a lot less of it. But that isn't the question. The question is: Why does the rosary in Hairspray wind up in the hands of the "bad" mom? Why are Christian symbols and expressions of faith so often associated with evil or unsympathetic characters in movies? It would be very easy to come up with another list a lot longer than the one above....

I'm not talking about making movies that are fundamentally about Christian heroism. Occasional Sophie Scholls and The Ninth Days aside, that's not something I look for from a lot of films. But would it kill moviemakers to throw in a few more positive Christian characters alongside the negative ones, associate symbols and expressions of faith with nice characters as well as nasty ones? I.M.'s basic point is well taken, even if I did come up with more than 20 films.

Mando: I will return.

Extra note re: Shooting Dogs: Keep in mind that this thread began with a question re: "Hollywood movies" posed by a Brit -- indeed, by a Brit who has since defined "Hollywood movies" to mean "American mainstream cinema". So citing a decidedly British film like Shooting Dogs (or, as I noted earlier, Amazing Grace, which was partly funded by a minor American production company or two but was otherwise a British production through-and-through) doesn't answer his question at all.

mrmando wrote:
: Asians and Asian-Americans are the next ethnic minority gathering steam for a Hollywood breakthrough.

Speaking of which, one of the films I caught at last year's film festival was the documentary Hollywood Chinese.

SDG wrote:
: OTOH, The Golden Compass flopped while The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a hit.

Just for the record, The Golden Compass has made over $300 million worldwide -- roughly 4/5 of that overseas. The overseas success isn't very helpful to the studio that made the film, because they pre-sold the foreign distribution rights etc., but for those who BOUGHT the foreign distribution rights, "flop" isn't quite what they've been experiencing. (I figure it's a point worth making since you said Hollywood tries to sell its vision to "America and the world".)

If I may blather on just a bit more:

1. Speaking of Sidney Poitier, he's probably best remembered for three films released in 1967: To Sir with Love, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat of the Night. I'm guessing the directors of those films -- Norman Jewison, Stanley Kramer, and James Clavell -- were not white supremacists. I.e., they were persuaded that it was time for Hollywood to start making films with prominent, well-drawn, positive black characters. They endorsed the agenda before they signed on to the project. So, to extend the analogy from portrayals of African-Americans to portrayals of Christians, we can reasonably surmise that filmmakers who personally oppose Christianity aren't going to suddenly start treating Christians better on film unless they are first convinced by some kind of persuasion, perhaps the same kind that contributed to changing attitudes about black people.

2. A filmmaker who doesn't understand Christianity probably doesn't have the skills to sort out the various Christian voices he or she may hear. The likely result is that all those voices will tend to blend together, resulting in a very mixed message that sounds something like: "Hollywood is a cesspool of sex, violence, and blasphemy! We will boycott your films and call you names! Oh, and by the way, why don't you depict people like us in a more positive light?"

3. The present problem of being misunderstood by Hollywood is part of the heavy price of the full-scale retreat from culture carried out by most conservative American Protestants over most of the past century.

4. Instead of comparing portrayals of Christians to those of ethnic and gender groups, what if we compared them to portrayals of people who practice other religions? Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, pagans, witches? I would guess Christians are better off than any other religious group in terms of how well and how often they're depicted in films.

5. And how come, when a Christian IS portrayed positively, he's usually either a white Catholic or a black Protestant?

White Catholics from the Production Code era, yes, but since then, if there's any group that's taken a savage beating in terms of cinematic portrayals, it has to be white Catholics.

As for black Protestants, that whole "magic negro" thing has something to do with it, I'm afraid. If you don't know what that term means, you can Google around and figure it out. I'm not trying to be deliberately provocative. It's a real character type, and a frustrating one.

Didn't see it. But that character did come up in every review of the film I read; so people did notice how that negative stereotype played. The film bombed, too, if I recall. Message sent? You tell me.


I very much pointed out its independent and British roots. I did.

I've got three fundamental assumptions in my thinking on this:

First, "Hollywood" is an industry, not a particular filmmaker or studio. So I'm not being "glib" when I say Hollywood makes what sells. That's a business reality. Now, individuals within that industry that may have an anti-Christian agenda, but not the industry itself. SDG, if you want to find this a glib or insignificant distinction, that's fine by me. But you're going to have to interpret my comments in light of that presumption. When I interview filmmakers, I talk to individuals, not to an industry. Just like when I talk to you, I talk to an individual, not to the Catholic Church. Now, if you want me to treat you like an institution rather than like an individual, I'll just decline, thanks.

So... very often, when films aimed at wide audiences fail, it's precisely because individual filmmakers forget that the film has to sell to a wide audience, and their personal agendas get in the way. (Can anyone think of a certain military/political genre that has lately illustrated this point?)

Second, "Hollywood" sells and promotes a lot of films that are not made in "Hollywood" itself; so, again from a business perspective, I find the usual definition of "Hollywood" bandied about by Christians to be unuseful -- you know, "films that are made in Los Angeles by denizens of Los Angeles about the values that Los Angeles people are invested in." Cause if you use that definition, you're really talking about, say, one sixth of the films actually released every year, most of which are R-rated and gross less than 30 million. (The Last Mimzy, while rated PG, was a notable exception with regard to ratings; but it bombed spectacularly, nonetheless, precisely because Bob Shay forgot that Los Angeles values do not sell in the broad market.)

I think a more useful definition of a "Hollywood" film is "any film distributed, either theatrically or on DVD, by any of the Big Seven distributors (and not by their botique labels)." That is, films that the industry thinks have a chance of being widely successful outside niche markets. And from this standpoint, you're going to be hard pressed to identify any specific agenda in Hollywood films -- other than that of the general public, who buys these films. (And from this standpoint, Beyond the Gates counts because it was heavily promoted by Fox for its American DVD release.)

Third, Hollywood, as a place and an industry, is populated by a lot of very unhappy and messed up people -- who, once they become successful and happy (if they do) make very different films and play very different roles than they did when they were struggling, young, angry, and messed up.

You wanna see the kinds of films that come out of Hollywood change for the better?

Then make a positive difference in the lives of those people. The films will change, and change dramatically. Picketing and protesting and whining about how poorly we're being treated won't accomplish that a whit.

So, no. I don't think I'm being glib at all. I think I'm being very analytical, pragmatic, and realistic. The world changes by changing people, and understanding those people as people not as faceless cogs in faceless, soulless industry.

Other than that, SDG, I pretty much agree with everything you wrote in your last post. At the same time, I pretty much agree with everything in Mando's last post, too.

Quick aside: No time for a full post right now, but FWIW, Greg, I not only agree with most of your latest post, I also agree with most of Mando's latest post AND with Xn's latest post. And I still stand by the points I have been trying to make. So the conversation may be getting a bit more complicated. I probably won't have time to follow up again until the weekend though....