-Caveat Lector-
>
> Hollywood vs. Selected Religions
> by Gary North
>
> Let's run a quick test. Say that you have been looking through reviews of
> recent Hollywood movies. You are reading along, trying to get a sense of
> what a movie is all about, when you see the word "Palestinian." The next
> word is:
>
> A. businessman
> B. scientist
> C. student
> D. terrorist
>
> You now read reviews of movies released after 1960. You read the word
> "fundamentalist." The word preceding it is:
>
> A. lovable
> B. educated
> C. principled
> D. bigoted
>
> Back in 1994, Michael Medved, the orthodox Jew who had attacked Hollywood
in
> his book, Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on
Traditional
> Values (1992), followed up with a PBS documentary, Hollywood vs. Religion.
> Medved in those days reviewed movies for PBS. I never saw his documentary
on
> PBS, but I own a copy of the videotape, now unfortunately out of print.
>
> Medved makes an important point: openly anti-religious movies consistently
> lose money - lots of money. The classic example is "The Last Temptation of
> Christ" (1988), whose presentation of a confused, self-doubting Jesus
> outraged Christians. It lost at least $13 million. Medved says that
> producing these movies is ideologically motivated. They represent a
> statement of faith by the liberal community that dominates Hollywood.
These
> people are rich, and they are willing to pour big money down predictable
> sinkholes "for the good of the cause."
>
> He provides a revealing chronology. In 1959, the biggest Hollywood
> blockbuster was "Ben-Hur," which won a record 11 Academy Awards. The next
> year brought the break in Hollywood's tradition: "Inherit the Wind," a
movie
> version of a highly inaccurate 1955 play about the 1925 Scopes' trial,
> although it presented the story as fiction. (Elsewhere, I have presented
the
> story of that trial in its historical context, a still-continuing battle
for
> control over the content of public school education: taxpayers vs. a
> self-certified academic cartel.) From that point on, says Medved, the
> industry's self-imposed restrictions on anti-religious movies steadily
broke
> down.
>
> In 1961, the Motion Picture Academy awarded the Oscar for best actor to
Burt
> Lancaster for "Elmer Gantry," the movie version of Sinclair Lewis's 1927
> novel about a morally corrupt evangelist. It had taken over three decades
to
> get that book onto the silver screen. The best thing I can say for the
movie
> is that Lewis's Gantry was worse. (Rent it. It does not hold up
> artistically. "Ben-Hur" does.)
>
> Medved says that the old Hollywood's Jewish moguls knew that their
customers
> were Americans, and Americans are religious. The Jews who created the film
> industry, in author Jack Wikoff's phrase, as "an empire of their own,"
were
> wise enough and profit-motivated enough not to launch a direct assault on
> the religious mores of the country. They wanted in on the American dream,
> not to undermine it.
>
> The movies were favorable to American religious and moral values most of
the
> time. Gangsters and adulteresses either died or repented before the movie
> was over. One exception, from "Gone With the Wind" to "Pretty Woman," has
> been the familiar theme of "the prostitute with a heart of gold." Belle
> Watling, the madam in "Gone With the Wind," did not die in the end, nor
did
> she repent, and she was pictured as "basically decent, except for that."
> This culminated with "Pretty Woman," where the lead character, a
prostitute,
> marries the rich hero and gets social revenge on the Beverly Hills
> saleswomen who had scorned her. (I was rooting for the saleswomen.)
>
> Hollywood has long toyed with the theme of "the prostitute with a heart of
> gold," which culminated in "Pretty Woman." The character in "Gone With the
> Wind" did not die in the end, nor did she repent, making her unique in
that
> era. The character in "Pretty Woman" married the rich hero and got revenge
> on the Beverly Hills saleswomen who had scorned her. (I was rooting for
the
> saleswomen.)
>
> When "Chariots of Fire" won the 1981 Oscar for best picture, this
blindsided
> Hollywood. The picture had been produced in England. It, too, holds up.
> (What does seem strange is that a Catholic actor played the Jew, Abrahams,
> and a homosexual actor played the Christian, Liddell. But the casting
> worked. The homosexual's only other memorable role before he died of AIDS
> was in "Gandhi," where he played a minister - a liberal, fortunately.)
>
>
> Selective Demonization
>
> On December 11, I watched a rented video, "Escape from L.A." (1996),
> starring Kurt Russell. The basic theme has long appealed to me: how to get
> out of Los Angeles and stay out. This movie was a sequel to "Escape from
New
> York" (1981), which ignited the adult phase of the career of Disney child
> star Russell - one of the few child stars ever to make the transition.
(His
> 1980 comedy, "Used Cars," was a riot, at least for those of us who were
> tired of Jimmy Carter's inflation, but it failed at the box office.)
>
> This movie undermined the reputation of director John Carpenter. The word
> "stinker" doesn't do it justice; it is not that good. The villain is a
> President-for-life, played as a cartoon caricature by the once-talented
> Cliff Robertson. The President had moved the nation's capital to
Lynchburg,
> Virginia. (Get it? The home town of You Know Who!) He is a tyrant, a liar,
a
> coward, and a fundamentalist, who has imposed a terrible penalty for moral
> criminals: permanent exile to Los Angeles, which had been turned into an
> island by an earthquake. The year is 2013. Stacy Keatch - who long, long
ago
> was America's most promising young Shakespearian actor - turned in the
only
> halfway decent performance as a ruthless military policeman.
>
> The movie, whose script was co-written by Carpenter and Russell, was an
> attack on religion and moral values. It included a rarity, a Muslim who
was
> not a villain. She was a slut, but a basically decent one. ("A slut with a
> heart of gold.") She had been exiled to Los Angeles because she had been a
> Muslim in South Dakota, and this had become illegal. You can sense the
> quality of the screenplay. (Casting Peter Fonda as an aging surfer was the
> movie's one touch of realism.)
>
> After it ended, I began to rewind it. The screen went blank briefly, and I
> found myself watching the NBC movie of the week, "The Natalie Cole Story."
> It was a pretty good movie. It followed her descent from a successful
> popular singer through drug addiction, divorce, bankruptcy, and recovery
> through spiritual renewal. It presented her as a serious Christian.
>
> She narrated the film and starred in its closing scenes of her more mature
> years. I had not seen this technique before. It worked.
>
> Natalie Cole is a mini-icon. Her father was a full-scale icon, and
> deservedly so. He was in every sense a gentleman. He was the first
American
> black to cross over that most exclusive of color lines, the popular love
> ballad. The public passively accepted the idea that he could sing love
songs
> to millions of white women. Almost nobody complained, and after the one
> attempted violent attack on him in the South, he dismissed it as not being
> representative of anything except one man's hate. Nat King Cole had
> advantages, of course: a magnificent voice, great musical taste, and
superb
> orchestral arrangements. The term "beloved" applied to him and Bing
Crosby,
> but to no other pop singers that I can think of. There was no way to give
> Natalie Cole the Elmer Gantry treatment.
>
> She made it clear that Jesus Christ is her God, that her faith had
delivered
> her, and her lack of faith had led her into drugs and despair. She had
> almost destroyed herself, as she makes clear in her narrative. She ended
the
> movie with these words: "It is all grace, but I try not to waste it." I
> cannot think of a closing line in any movie that made a more important
> theological point.
>
> Was this movie a break from Hollywood vs. religion? Not at all. Two groups
> have only rarely, if ever, had their religions pictured as corrupt by
> Hollywood: Jews and blacks. There is no equivalent of Elmer Gantry in
their
> celluloid ranks.
>
> The lesson? Artistic self-policing works just fine when the groups
on-screen
> are part of the liberals' agenda for social reform.
>
> It is clear who the main targets are today: conservative Christians and
> Middle Eastern Muslims. Mormons are left alone. So are Quakers, the Amish,
> and other pacifist groups. These groups are perceived as not having enough
> votes to give liberals political trouble, at least not outside of Utah.
> Liberals are willing to write off Utah.
>
> To Inflict Pain
>
> In 1988, when "The Last Temptation of Christ" was released, a few pastors
in
> Tyler, Texas decided that this was too much. They organized a boycott.
> Fundamentalist pastors rarely organize local boycotts, but they had had
> enough. They asked their members to agree for one year not to attend any
> local theater that showed it. Then they approached the manager and told
him
> that it would hurt his business to show it. He showed it anyway. A year
> later the theater was bankrupt. The building was refurbished and rented to
> retail stores.
>
> Boycotts may not work at the national level, where movie producers have
deep
> pockets, but most of America's movie chains today are in bankruptcy, and
the
> others are close behind. Red ink is flowing. Local year-long boycotts of
all
> 12 or 16 screens can have positive effects. "When you grab them by their
> tickets, their hearts and minds will follow."
>
> Back in the days of the Catholic Office for Motion Pictures and the Legion
> of Decency, Protestants had an ally that understood the importance of
tight
> church discipline, and also how to use this discipline to make persuasive
> suggestions to outsiders. The Catholic hierarchy made it clear to
Hollywood
> that it would cost producers big money if certain standards were violated
> on-screen. This led to some silly rules, such as twin beds for married
> couples, but the overall effect was positive. The Legion of Decency used
the
> free market to pressure profit-seeking filmmakers to restrain themselves.
> But the Legion went out of existence in the late 1960's, along with
Catholic
> Church discipline. A new system of ratings was self-imposed by the
industry.
> Standards began to decline immediately, and this includes artistic
> standards.
>
> My suggestion: We could use a few more legions and a lot more decency.
>
> December 13, 2000
>
> Gary North is the author of a ten-volume series, An Economic Commentary on
> the Bible. The latest volume is Sacrifice and Dominion: An Economic
> Commentary on Acts. The series can be downloaded free of charge at
> www.freebooks.com.
>
> Michael Medved, in Hollywood vs. America, makes a compelling case for the
estrangement of Hollywood from mainstream American society and their
subsequent hostility toward "the traditional." While noting Hollywood's
cumulative attacks in recent years on the traditional family, patriotism,
and traditional sexual mores, Medved's clearest message is that so much of
what has emanated from Hollywood is now shockingly anti-religious, in
particular with respect to Christianity. While Medved does not state it
explicitly, we are witnessing the effects of a kind of cultural hegemony
exercised by a distinct group of alienated Hollywood writers, producers,
etc. who, one might note, are predominately Jonish.
Hollywood attitudes toward the most established religion in America--
Christianity--is a key area tested by Medved:
In the ongoing war on traditional values, the assault on organized faith
represents the front to which the entertainment industry has most clearly
committed itself. On no other issue do the perspectives of the show
business elites and those of the public at large differ more dramatically.
Time and again, the producers have gone out of their way to affront the
religious sensibilities of ordinary Americans.
Citing a 1991 study which found that "89 percent of Americans claim
affiliations with an organized faith," Medved describes in detail how
Hollywood has produced fare hostile to its audience's beliefs. He starts
with a long account of the protests related to the showing of Martin
Scorsese'sThe Last Temptation of Christ. Twenty-five thousand people
protested in front of the MCA/Universal offices to register their
unhappiness with a film which profoundly insulted the dignity of the founder
of one of the world's great religions. Groups and religious people as
mainstream as "the National Council of Catholic Bishops, the National
Catholic Conference, the Southern Baptist Convention (with 14 million
members), the Eastern Orthodox Church of America, the archbishop of
Canterbury, the archbishop of Paris . . . and Mother Teresa" protested the
showing of the film; Hollywood executives ignored them. MCA's indifference
to the wishes of protesters, Medved notes, was in stark contrast to
Hollywood responses to other concerns. For example, animal rights activists
demanded that Disney studios delete a scene they felt was "an anti-wolf
statement." Disney assented. In another case, the religious leader of one
Hopi village determined that a script in an upcoming Robert Redford film was
"sacrilegious." The script was promptly amended.
Medved shares a long list of anti-Christian films, beginning with
anti-Catholic fare:
The Runner Stumbles (1979). This notorious turkey . . . features . . . a
small-town priest who falls in love with a sensitive young nun, and then
stands trial for her murder.
Monsignor (1982). Christopher Reeves . . . played a prince of the Roman
Catholic Church. This pernicious prelate engages in every imaginable sin,
including the seduction of a glamorous, idealist nun and complicity in her
death. His shady dealings with the Mafia to control the Vatican bank
eventually bring him to the peak of power under the approving eye of a
shriveled, anorexic Pope.
Agnes of God (1985). The movie opens with the uplifting spectacle of
disturbed young nun Meg Tilly giving birth in a convent, murdering her baby,
and then flushing the tiny, bloody corpse down the toilet.
The Penitent (1988). Raul Julia plays a farmer in New Mexico who joins a
primitive and brutal Catholic cult after his bored wife gets involved in an
affair with his boyhood pal.
Last Rites (1988). Tom Berenger is a moody priest who falls passionately in
love with a mysterious Mexican "hot tamale." He abuses his position in the
Church in his desperate efforts to protect her, and is ultimately entangled
with murder and the mob.
We're No Angels (1989). Robert De Niro and Sean Penn play two lunk-headed
petty crooks who escape from prison and pretend to be priests. . . . The
movie is supposed to be a remake of a 1955 escaped-cons comedy with Humphrey
Bogart, but the earlier film contained none of the anticlerical elements of
ecclesiastical masquerade that are central to the plot of the more recent
version.
The Pope Must Die (1991). This putrid comedy trots out every hoary
anti-Catholic canard of the last two thousand years, including sultry and
seductive nuns who provide the Holy Father with his own private harem, and
conniving cardinals who control illicit arms deals, organized crime, and
sleazy banking around the world.
Offering a key insight about this string of anti-Catholic movies, Medved
writes, "The most important point to keep in mind about all these movies and
their grim and skeptical view of the church of Rome is that their negativity
is never answered by simultaneous releases that offer a sympathetic
treatment of Catholicism." Medved writes that in the fifteen years prior to
publishing Hollywood vs. America, he could think of precisely one film "that
presented a sympathetic view of the Church" (Romero, 1989), and even then,
it was one that originated outside the Hollywood mainstream. Such a pattern
indeed mirrors what John Murray Cuddihy views as Freud's animus against Rome
and suggests that "the ordeal of civility" remains alive and well in the
precincts of Hollywood.
Medved then proceeds to list anti-Protestant imagery:
Crimes of Passion (1984). As a sweaty, Bible-toting Skid Row evangelist,
Anthony Hopkins generates the same warmth and charm he brought to his famous
role as Norman Bates in Psycho.
Poltergeist II (1986). This sorry sequel to the successful horror film of
1982 featured a hymn-singing preacher from beyond the grave who leads a band
of demonic Bible-belters in trying to drag a hip suburban family down to
hell.
The Vision (1987). An impressive cast is utterly wasted on an insipid sci-fi
fantasy about conspiring Christians who use hypnotic TV technology in a
ruthless plot to take over the world.
Light of Day (1987). This somber stinker, written and directed by Last
Temptation screenwriter Paul Schrader, portrays a prominent midwestern
minister as a pious, pompous fraud.
The Handmaid's Tale (1990). Some of the industry's most prestigious
performers appeared in this pointedly political polemic about what life
might be like if Christian fundamentalists came to power in America. As
portrayed in the film, these religious zealots are considerably less lovable
than the Nazis, who at least had stylish uniforms to recommend them.
The Rapture (1991). Mimi Rogers plays a buxom swinger, addicted to group sex
with strangers, who sacrifices these satisfactions when she makes a sudden
commitment to Christ. . . . Before the end of the film her "faith" causes
her to take her six-year-old daughter out to the desert where . . . the
heroine takes a revolver, holds it to her daughter's head, and, while
mumbling invocations of the Almighty, blows the child's brains out.
Film critic Michael Medved notes the pattern of gratuitous anti-Christian
scenes in Hollywood films, such as when director Rob Reiner repeatedly
focuses on the tiny gold cross worn by Kathy Bates, the sadistic villain in
Misery, or when we see De Niro's character in the remake of Cape Fear. In
the original 1962 version with Robert Mitchum, Mitchum's character played
the menacing role without reference to religious symbols, yet in the 1991
remake, De Niro plays a member of a Pentecostal church and carries a Bible
under his arm in several scenes.
I have found an even more fascinating example of turning a character with no
outward Christian symbols into a malevolent character with such symbols.
All of you must know Charlie Sheen, son of actor Martin Sheen. The younger
Sheen is one of the most bankable young men in Hollywood today. In a movie
called Under Pressure he plays what appears to be a brave and heroic
fireman.
Quickly, however, we see that he is an obsessed and uptight racist killer,
prone to quoting Scripture before and during his murders. The scene that
cements the anti-Christian bias of this film comes with a nod to a
well-known scene from father Martin Sheen's most memorable role, which was
as the soldier sent to find Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Recall that in the
film's opening, helicopters fly back and forth across the screen while The
Doors music fills the air. The film cuts to Martin Sheen on the bed of a
suffocatingly hot Saigon hotel. The sound of the choppers' blades mixes in
with the sound of the ceiling fan. Sheen is on his back, blankly gazing at
the fan above. Sweat roles off his forehead. There are no Christian
symbols.
Under Pressure pays tribute to this scene by having the psychotic Charlie
Sheen in an identical pose, sweat dripping from his face. He hasn't slept
in days. He stares at the ceiling fan above him. This time, however, the
camera slowly and deliberately pans down to his chest; he is clearly wearing
a silver cross necklace. The camera closes in.
Ironically, this is in contrast to the image of Christians Jews created back
when Christian hegemony reigned in America. During the early Hollywood era,
films celebrating ethnicity, religion and religious leaders were common and
often box-office hits. This can be explained partly by looking at who made
up the bulk of the early movie audiences: immigrant Catholics and Jews, both
of whom experienced life in America as marginal groups. The list of movies
from early Hollywood celebrating (or at least respecting) the major
religious traditions is a long one. "Biblical blockbusters like Samson and
Delilah, David and Bathsheba, Quo Vadis?, The Robe, The Ten Commandments,
and Ben Hur were specifically designed to appeal to the predilections of the
pious, and each of these films became the nation's top box-office hit in the
year of its release" (though some, such as Ben Hur--which won eleven Academy
Awards in 1959--stretch into a later period).
Golden Era films "invariably portrayed clergymen in a sympathetic light."
Michael Medved lists the stars and their religious hits: Bing Crosby (Going
My Way, Bells of St. Mary's, Say One for Me), Pat O'Brien (Angels with Dirty
Faces, The Fighting 69th), and Spencer Tracy (Boys Town, Men of Boys Town).
In less memorable films, Clark Gable played a minister in Polly of the
Circus; Frank Sinatra portrayed a parish priest in The Miracle of the Bells;
and Mickey Rooney impersonated a feisty frontier preacher in The Twinkle of
God's Eye. "In all of these films, and many more, the members of the clergy
gave hope to under-privileged kids, or comforted GIs on the battlefield, or
helped decent but down-and-out families to survive hard times. If a
character appeared on screen wearing a clerical collar it served as a sure
sign that the audience was supposed to like him."
Another source of pro-religious (or at least highly moral and traditional)
sentiments in Hollywood movies came from individual producers and directors.
No one can think of Frank Capra, a Sicilian-born Catholic, or Walt Disney, a
Kansas Congregationalist, and not attribute their films to their origins.
"They both knew the rural and small-town heartland of America. Their comic
talents veered toward sentimentality and they were imbued with social
purpose, a desire to revitalize the nation's old communal myths." Robert
Sklar finds Capra's Christianity intrinsic to the messages of so many of his
films. In the half-dozen years 1936-41, Capra deliberately created five
social-message films (which were said to be inspired by a balding man who
visited Capra when he was sick and rebuked him for not using his talents for
more morally constructive purposes). These films--Mr.Deeds Goes to Town,
Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and
Meet John Doe--were all films with clear moral themes.
In Sklar's analysis of Meet John Doe, for instance, he writes that in "the
fifth and final ending Doe is persuaded not to jump, because their solution
was to transmute the Capra hero into a modern Christ. . . . The parallel
between Long John Willoughby and Jesus Christ has its obvious shortcomings,
but it is more of an answer than Capra is willing to admit in his
autobiography." Continuing, he says, "It linked the Capra hero directly to
the Christian faith." "In the process of turning John Doe into a
Christ-figure, Capra transformed the myth of his American hero into a
defense of Christian morality."
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