A Thing that Annoys Me

I am no religious, but I know a bit about religion, so I tend to read articles about it when I come across them. Case in point, this Atlantic article that discusses the trouble a Christian author had in getting his Christian movie made. Block quote!

The point of Save Blue Like Jazz, then, is about more than just making a movie out of a popular book. It's a mission to prove there's a market for a different kind of film that explores the Christian faith: one that expresses doubt but falls eventually on the side of belief.

Well, so far so good. Not a whole lot to complain about. Sadly, however, the article then decides that Hollywood never makes movies that fall into that category -- although it notes at the end that Passion of the Christ is a Christian movies, as was Signs, M. Night Shyamalan's Mel Gibson movie, and a horror film I vaguely remember starring Laura Linney. But it bemoans that Hollywood insists on making movies like Saved and (apparently) Easy A.

And, well, whatever, Christians have few more favored hobbies than convincing themselves that they actually represent a persecuted minority. However, just off the top of my head, I, an unbeliever, can think of any number of films that present characters searching for or retaining their faith: Bad Lieutenant, Mean Streets, Last Temptation of Christ, the Passion of Joan of Arc, Jesus' Son.

I suppose the author would say, "Sure, but most of those films are Catholic." Well, Jesus' Son isn't, but it's also only Christian as an undertone. The article was speaking specifically about evangelical Christians. And fine, whatever. But as the article notes, evangelicals don't seem to have a taste for nuanced displaces of faith in a real world setting. They want Hallmark Channel accounts of perfect people perfectly loving Jesus. And whatever floats your boat, I guess. It just annoys me to see the tired old argument about Hollywood, godless Sodom trotted out for the nth time.