Is a movie a movie, or does it have to be perfect? Is a story a story, or does it have to be perfect? Or are we content with a plot that opens our minds and makes us think, or does it have to present to us what we already know in a nice little package? Why is it that as Christians we ask Hollywood to put out a movie that expresses Christian values, and yet when they come close, we bash the movie for not meeting our high standards. I dare say the Bible probably doesn’t meet our high standards. And why do we want Hollywood to make a movie about everything we already know about? My only guess is so it can be a perfectly packaged witness. My friends, a Christian witness is not going to come packaged in VHS format. It comes from our lives, our actions, our choices. No movie will ever perfectly capture the message of salvation that our world needs to hear. A movie may come close, and yet be only grasping at straws, and yet Christians still complain that it’s not good enough.
This evening I watched the movie Pleasantville at a Film Forum at school. Afterwards I read some reviews on a Christian movie review web page. I was shocked to hear people slamming this movie for its attack on Christianity. Certainly, the movie doesn’t present the gospel, and you’d be hard pressed to say it’s any kind of symbolic representation of Christianity. But what movie is? The movie was about change. Opening your mind to change and not being stuck in your rigid pew. The movie was poking fun at the shallow values of 1950’s sitcoms. With a premise like that, what’s the first and easiest rigid idea to attack? Sex. Of course that’s the easiest place to start, and that’s where the movie starts. These critics stop there, seeing the movie as promoting sinfulness. But as the main character says, “Maybe it’s not the sex.” If you only see this movie as portraying a sensual life style, you’ve horribly missed the point.
Sometimes Christians really confuse me. We want moral movies from Hollywood. But life isn’t always moral. Why do we want Hollywood to ignore reality? Sin is a reality, and perhaps as Christians we need to accept that. It doesn’t mean embrace it, it means understand that sin is real. What kind of story can you tell when you can’t portray sin because it’s unacceptable? If Hollywood made a realistic movie of the Bible, Christians would hate it. There’d be violence. There’d be sex. And somehow the overwhelming theme isn’t enough to counter balance these negatives.
Do you know why Hollywood doesn’t listen to Christians? Because a lot of us don’t think. We’re not interested in a movie that makes you think. We’re interested in a movie with good values. If it doesn’t have good values, forget about it. It’s useless. I don’t think life works that way.
If God made movies, what would they look like? Would there be any violence? What about sex? What about nudity? What about swearing? Would the characters take God’s name in vain? I don’t think the answers to all of these questions is a resounding no. I’m not sure what the answers are, and maybe there aren’t any. But it’s something we should certainly think about before we open our mouth about what Hollywood should or shouldn’t do.