Every decade or so, power players in Hollywood discover that there are millions of Americans who do not mind buying tickets to see movies that contain overtly religious symbols, themes and even characters.
I’ve been covering this story since the 1980s. It’s fascinating how new generations of reporters manage to work up a sense of culture shock about this.
For example, consider that much-discussed Atlantic feature back in 2005 that ran with this headline: “Can Jesus Save Hollywood?”
Another five or six years later, the discussion of niche-Christian entertainment was still creating buzz. The conservative interfaith journal First Things ran a provocative piece with this headline: “Is ‘Christian’ the new ‘Gay’?” Sociologist D. Michael Lindsay, at that time the president of Gordon College, responded to a question about that equation:
This comes from a quote that one woman who I interviewed in Hollywood recounted to me a story that she had where the conversation basically was a Hollywood producer telling her that it had become new and interesting for committed Christians to “come out” in Hollywood. And they actually used that language of “coming out” where one publicly identifies in this way. I think what it really reflects is although historically Christianity has been a very powerful force in this country, within the pockets of elite cultural life — in Hollywood, at universities like Harvard and Yale and the rarefied heights of arts and entertainment — being a deeply committed person of faith, whatever that faith tradition may be, is seen as unusual or odd. There’s pressure when you’re in those high positions not to be too public about your faith and certainly not a faith that is evangelistic in approach because that’s seen as overbearing or narrow-minded.
Like I said, this is “old” news. This trend will go on and on — because America is basically a red v. blue puzzle these days and it’s hard to ignore the evidence that “pew gap” statistics play some role in that.
That David French guy — much hated by Trumpian conservatives and lots of illiberal progressives — had a provocative summary of the situation in his must-read book “Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” Here is a summary of that French thesis from a new essay I wrote for the journal Religion & Liberty about the death of the old-school American Model of the Press:
The bottom line: Americans are divided by their choices in news and popular culture, choosing to live in protective silos of digital content. America remains the developing world’s most religious nation, yet its secularized elites occupy one set of zip codes, while most religious believers live in another. These armies share no common standards about "facts," "accuracy" or "fairness."
“It's time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity of the United States cannot be guaranteed,” wrote French. At this moment, “there is not a single important cultural, religious, political, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pulling us apart.”
This brings me to a new City Journal piece with this headline: “Can Capitalism Save Hollywood? The gulf between elites and audiences is eroding profits throughout entertainment and news media — but signs of correction are emerging.”
Readers will search in vin for words such as “faith,” “Christian” and “religion” in this essay. However, after a litany of bad news about red ink in mainstream media, there is this:
This decline reflects the growing gap between the legacy media and at least half their potential audience. According to Gallup, overall public trust in the media is lower than it’s ever been; barely one-third of poll respondents express confidence, half the percentage that felt that way in 1978. Hollywood, television, and radio register similarly low levels of support.
Meantime, much of the established media see their primary mission not as informing or entertaining but propagating ideologies. Yet this shift, executives know, is not sustainable according to the most critical metric—profits. “I think in the end no one much cares about politics but they do care about money,” one well-placed executive suggests. “People know that sex and violence sell better than political lectures. In the end, if you want to send a message, use Western Union.”
The lens here is — #DUH — economics and politics.
But the “cultural” divide keeps popping into view. Later, there is this:
In Hollywood, great films tended often to be popular ones as well. Critics praised, and moviegoers flocked to, films such as West Side Story, The Sound of Music, or even ones as recent as The Lord of the Rings trilogy. By contrast, today’s award-winning films seem largely chosen for their appeal to insiders and reflect ignorance of or contempt for much of their potential audience. Indeed, many movies considered Oscar material today have gross sales worth less than the cost of a “modest” Beverly Hills mansion.
And:
Corporate America claims that wokeness is good for business, but there’s little evidence for that claim. As film critic Michael Medved has suggested, the media have been losing touch with much of America for at least three decades, but the problem seems to have reached a breaking point. Writing off huge audiences, like young white males or, more broadly, people with conservative values, turns out not to be the best way to grow your market.
OK, unpack these phrases: “contempt for much of their potential audience” and “people with conservative values.” Any sociological study of that material would run straight into religious and moral issues. Right?
Let’s read one more block of religion-free (#SORTOF) material:
A cancellation wave is coming, but it is not a woke one. Netflix, which has lost roughly 1 million subscribers and made massive layoffs, recently cancelled Q Force, a gay-oriented, adult-animated comedy. It has also canceled a sizeable batch of shows, including the animated Wings of Fire and Anti-Racist Baby, written by “antiracist” guru Ibram X. Kendi, and terminated First Kill, a lesbian vampire series that never won much audience. “It’s kind of bad to spend $50 million on something that doesn’t sell,” suggests one long-time agent. This shift has upset observers at places like the New York Times, who fear that Hollywood is “regressing” from the progressive agenda and (gasp) once again embracing cop shows.
To grow and profit in the future, the media and entertainment industries need to win back at least part of the public that now disdains them at historic levels.
Read it all. It’s not a long piece.
My question, of course, is simple: Why avoid the religious and moral piece of this equation?
But you knew that I would say that.
So let’s look at another angle — art. Here’s the opening of a column that I wrote 25 years ago about the views of a rather important, high-profile Hollywood superstar. Note the name, and then read his words more than once:
Most movies about the South look like they were filmed in Southern California.
What's missing is heat, sweat, rust, bugs, mud and another messy reality called "sin." These movies contain sinful behavior, but nobody calls it "sin" or says folks should do anything about it. This is strange, since the real South contains zones in which people still wear Sunday clothes, carry ragged Bibles and say prayers before meals in restaurants.
"Most folks in New York and out here in California just don't know what to do with life below the New Jersey shore," said Robert Duvall, who has several weeks doing waves of interviews trying to explain his film "The Apostle" to the whole media world. "They just can't seem to get it right. ... Everything ends up looking and sounding all wrong."
Lots of people understand that sinners can do good and that saints don't win all their battles with their demons. It's the people who really believe in sin who understand that sin, repentance and redemption are often messy subjects, said Duvall, who recently received an Oscar nomination for this performance as the flawed, but faithful, preacher E. F. "Sonny" Dewey.
"There really are preachers in jail. I've met guys like that who have done all kinds of bad things, even murder and rape," said Duvall, who wrote "The Apostle" script in long hand and directed it himself. "These guys are real people and they struggle with the good and the bad that's in their own souls. They're human. I wanted to show the reality of that struggle. ... My guy makes mistakes. But he's more good than bad. He hangs on to his faith, because it's real."
That’s all, for now. This story will come around again, and again, and again.
FIRST IMAGE: Image from the cover of “Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul” by Christian Toto.