The Dark Side of Discernment
Are you a target market?
Long time readers of this site will remember when I highlighted FoxFaith over a year ago - the then-new division of Fox catering to Christians.
FoxFaith has been quietly releasing family-friendly films since late 2006, starting with movie adaptations of Janette Oke novels. A year and a bit in, I’m not sure they’re making that big of a splash.
What I have seen happening instead of the FoxFaith model (or perhaps alongside it?) is the targeted marketing of more mainstream offerings to Christians. Some example films of recent memory are Spiderman 3 (highlighting the insidious nature of evil/sin), Lars and the Real Girl (the power of acceptance and community), Bella (celebrating life) and at this very moment, Ben Stein’s answer to the Michael Moore genre; Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (intelligent design).
The reason I bring all of this up is because I just came across the article announcing the FoxFaith venture from 2 years ago, and one paragraph in particular got my back up …
Over the past four years, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has quietly built a network focusing on evangelical Christian moviegoers in an era of diminishing box-office returns. The network includes 90,000 congregations and a database of more than 14 million mainly evangelical households.
Does that bother you? You, my fellow believers, are a target market.
On the one hand, this may mean there will be many more movies with a positive message and lacking objectionable or immoral content to get that message across. It may also mean our message gets confused in the hands of market researchers, and the lack of objectionable content trumps excellence and storytelling at the box office.
How do you think that affects the films that are being produced? Do you think it will overall do more harm or good to film as an artform? And what impact might it have on the “value system of hollywood”? Is that important?
Oh, and while we’re chatting, what do you think about Expelled?
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 am
you said, “Oh, and while we’re chatting, what do you think about Expelled?”
my response: i don’t.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
personally, i blame the [hollywood] idea of “christians as a target market” for films on the passion of the christ’s success…
i wonder when the sequel’s coming out?
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:07 am
And are you saying you think the Passion was awful too? I have to say I really liked the Passion, regardless of what it may have kick-started in the world of “Christians as a target market”. Of course, you are free to disagree. I know a lot of Christians who won’t even watch it, but it really hit me hard when I saw it and I did like it. Not sure I’d say I “enjoyed” it, but a lot of it felt like watching an excellent painting, it was just visually really rich to me.
My favorite Jesus film, though, is still “The Miracle Maker”. It’s a claymation one done by BBC. To me, no film has captured Jesus as a flesh-and-blood person as well as that one. And he’s not even flesh and blood in it!
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
i have no opinion on expelled, nor do i have any desire to se it. i don’t care a whit about the debate, to be honest. here’s a good discussion of it, if you want to look: http://artsandfaith.com/index.php?showtopic=16419&hl=
as for the passion - no. i don’t think it was awful. it was, indeed, a powerful film (regardless of the issues i have with it), and it intentionally referenced numerous paintings as templates for some of its tableaux. all i was saying is that it woke hollywood up to christians as a marketing demographic willing to spend cash big-time and rabidly faithful to any film they identified as christian. and i think that’s where foxfaith entered the game. i’m as offended by christians lobbying me to support a film that supposedly supports “family values” (or whatever) as i am to christians lobbying me to boycott heathen films. please. evan almighty? what crap. it made my teeth hurt.
while my sons and i do like the miracle maker, i still think that jesus of montreal is my favourite jesus film. though if you want to go with period pieces (or “towel dramas”), i’d prolly go with the gospel of matthew or that tv special with jeroen krabbe and gene sisco.
and i still think it’s odd that lars and the real girl was marketed at all to christians. very odd.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I wouldn’t say I am interested in the debate behind “Expelled” either, though I do find it interesting to see a film of this type take the kind of stance it is taking, with someone like Ben Stein behind it (not a poster-boy for conservative Christianity). My take on it is that it is not about evolution being wrong per-se, but rather about our “open minded” society silencing scientists who don’t tow the party line, which is an interesting slant to me. To me, evolution or creation, I have no problems seeing God involved. But the fight for intellectual openness coming from the right-wing, rather than the left is an interesting take.
I will have to see Jesus of Montreal - still haven’t. I did like the Gospel of Matthew stuff AND the tv miniseries too. But I think there is something so disarming, so subversive and so… Jesus? about taking such a “serious” story and putting it into a media “for little kids”. So many people I show Miracle Maker to have never even considered watching it because it’s “just a kids movie”.
Oh, and Evan Almighty - crap indeed I am sure, though I haven’t seen it.
BUT, all of this being said, as the films that get made are the films that get funded, is there any merit at all to recognizing Christianity as a “market demographic”. IE, is it possible that with resources put to wards it, good stories could get told well?
Or no?
May 4th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Possibly my favorite movie about Jesus is Jesus Christ: Superstar. Definitely not made for the Christian demographic, but I think it does more than it knows.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I have to say, I like Superstar a LOT as well. There are many things I think it gets wrong (I’m not a big fan of the Mary Magdeline relationship and I’m not a big fan of the times where Jesus seems so overwhelmed and wishing all the hurting people would leave him alone). But there are many things I think it gets really right. Not least of which the music!
I think perhaps my favorite portrayals of the Christ story have to do with those than can tell it in a new way. To shed new light on old truths that I take for granted now. Maybe that’s why I love the ones I do? And maybe that’s why you love “Montreal” techne?
Andrew, you said, “I think it does more than it knows.” Like what? Just curious to hear more on that.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
have to say i quite enjoyed lars and the real girl (i don’t think anyone else right now is as silently expressive as gosling - watch him in lars, half nelson and, yes, the notebook if you don’t know what i mean). and i really enjoyed juno - kind of a wes anderson ‘lite’.
regarding your other question: “BUT, all of this being said, as the films that get made are the films that get funded, is there any merit at all to recognizing Christianity as a “market demographic”. IE, is it possible that with resources put towards it, good stories could get told well?” i believe it is possible. and even probable. but then the question is how do we market to christian audiences, and how do we negotiate the [possible] compromises between marketability and content. will the desire to get the funding and reach the huddled masses cause us to remove crucial elements or, worse, cause us to misrepresent our intentions until it’s too late for potential funders to recoup their investement?
i find it interesting that the nativity story and end of the spear movies were marketed to christians and never fared that well. then again, some christians had issues that mary was played by an actor who (in real life) became pregnant and is unmarried, and that christian missionary jim elliot was played by a gay man. i suppose when it comes to film, the question is ALWAYS, “how will the market control the work?” whether before, during or after production.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
It is funny that some of what is much more “well done” - like Nativity Story and End of the Spear (neither amazing, but much better in my opinion than most “Christian fare” - gets ignored by Christians. Perhaps we as the church need to take another look at Phil 4:8 and begin to seek out and champion those things that are truly “true, noble, love-ly, excellent”, etc. We, as a “target market” seem just as prone to chase after the “blockbusters” of our own genre as the world is to spend all it’s money on filth and fluff. Could we, the church, raise the bar a little? Is that part of our role?
May 7th, 2008 at 6:49 am
re: “Could we, the church, raise the bar a little? Is that part of our role?”
do you mean as “a target market”? i don’t think that is the issue — after all, it’s not just christians who could use infusions of discerning taste. i don’t believe that supporting or boycotting movies will affect hollywood and the content of hollywood’s movies that much. if we truly want to affect society and be a voice that can address morality and the state of our culture (and therefore people), we will have to do much more than that. i would suggest that, if we want to influence film and hollywood, we will have to get involved with the industry (i.e. become salt and light) and change it from the inside as spies in the house of film. of course, then the question becomes “how many christians would see this as a missions strategy worth supporting?”
or do you mean as supporters (and therefore, ultimately, producers) of “appropriate” fare?
May 7th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I don’t really mean as a target market. And I don’t mean getting more Christian movies made. I mean in one sense the Church, having the discernment of Christ, and based on that discernment “voting with our dollars” as it were. The Passion of the Christ is a good example, regardless of your opinions on the film. It was a huge risk for Mel G and many predicted it as a bomb. Without the massive upswell of Church support, it likely would have been. But, that upswell caused a worldwide movement that catapulted the thing into a major success story that spawned a whole new awareness of the influence people of faith can have - in this case by what they support, not what they condemn.
All I’m saying is that we are far more influential by what we honor, support, praise, encourage, fund, etc. than by what we protest, condemn, decry and denounce. And I think that principle can work both as audience and creators of work.
Ultimately, yes, those filled with the indwelling Christ need to be the ones at (some of) the controls, so that work with a true kingdom-understanding will be produced, rather than just work that the big wigs are guessing we will like. Since the wisdom of the Gospel is foolishness to the world, I think Christians need to be involved in order to be represented well.
May 7th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
:All I’m saying is that we are far more influential by what we honor, support, praise, encourage, fund, etc. than by what we protest, condemn, decry and denounce. And I think that principle can work both as audience and creators of work.”
agreed (and well put!)