Art+Life+Spirit

So, apparently another Christian Movie came out. A few people have asked me if I plan on seeing it. Truthfully, my answer is “no”. I have just been too disappointed with the whole Christian Moviemaking Industry, if that exists, and I don’t want to risk spending eight bucks on something that’s going to disappoint me. How do I know it’s going to disappoint me? I don’t, but if past experience is any guide, it will.

Why do Christian movies stink? For a lot of reasons. But there’s a couple of reasons that really stand out ….

1. Christians try to make 100 million dollar special-effects films on a 10 million dollar budget. It doesn’t work. You can’t build the sets, create the effects, or — and this is the kicker — recruit the talent. And I’m not just talking about actors, though that’s ultimately what’s going to put the most tails in the seats. You need a big, deep crew at every level of production, from production design to the edit.
2. Story. Story. Story. You have to tell a story worth telling. You have to tell a story with conviction, passion, emotion, and heart. You have to have a well written script with conflict, dynamic characters, moments of discovery, suspense, setups and payoffs, and, ultimately, connection. An audience has to connect with what’s going on, and what’s going on better say something about what it means to be a human being trying to make a living on this spinning ball of rock and magma. Most Christian films tell stories that are one-sided, poorly written, and static. They feel more like recreations of the action points of Christian self-help books than a story.

I remember a few years ago, as the Christian alternative scene was beginning to be embraced by the Contemporary Christian Music industry, I was perusing my local Christian bookstore, preparing to pay way-too-much for a CD. On the wall I found a nifty little chart that listed secular acts alphabetically, and then gave their Christian counterpart. You like Nirvana? Try Grammatrain! Less Than Jake? Here’s the Supertones! For every band that you shouldn’t be listening to, you’ve got a Christian alternative. I am not trying to take away anything from either of those Christian bands, and comparisons also exist in the secular realm. The difference is that in the secular realm, the strength of a band is measured by how one band differentiates itself from others within its genre. Christian bands are content to simply emulate.

Is Coldplay a merely a rip-off of Radiohead, or do they bring enough to the table to allow themselves to stand on their own? If the answer is that they are just a Radiohead rip-off, then their critical stock falls. However, in the Christian market, we celebrate rip-offs, and make charts to show how successfully we do it.

I say all this about Christian music because it appears that the same thing is happening in the burgeoning Christian film industry. They’re trying to keep up and rip-off instead of bring something new to the table. And worse still, here at the birth of the industry, they aren’t even pulling it off. It’s like a street hustler trying to tell us the watch is a Rolex when we can see the gold paint flaking off. At least there was some real talent at the inception of the Christian music industry. Keith Green and Second Chapter of Acts could get it done. The Christian film industry doesn’t have it.

What’s the answer?

I think the problem with the Christian Entertainment Industry is symptomatic of a larger problem with the American Christian establishment. I am convinced the church can solve problem #1. A few mega-churches could cough up 75 or 100 million, easily. But they can’t cough up a good story.

We don’t tell stories in the church anymore. We sell self-help books and fight battles against our neighbor. We run our churches like businesses, and as such, we see the Great Commission as a competition … against other churches and our communities. It’s us versus them, and military metaphor is ample. We have political ambitions, with “family values” at the top of our platform. All of this narcissistic belly-looking has caused us to erect a pretty massive bubble around our own, unique culture, complete with its own dress-code, language, and rules. Christian Entertainment is merely a reflection of that culture.

When I read the Bible, I see where the concept of “story” came from. Existence has been a struggle between good and evil, with conflicted individuals making good and bad decisions as they struggle with what it means to be alive. In the Bible, we see an unfolding epic of how God created the world, the world looked for meaning elsewhere, and God came down to show us where to find it. It’s a story of meaning, with meaning. It is not a self-help book or a political manifesto, and it’s definitely not family-friendly entertainment.

I can’t listen to Christian radio anymore. That’s the tag: “Positive, Family friendly”. A few years back, a friend of mine was taking a dance class and wanted to find some sort of Christian song about sorrow and struggle. There weren’t any. Psalm 13 need not apply. That’s not the market. The market demands safe, happy, pat-on-the-back songs about having it all figured out. Let’s take what the world is doing, and make it family friendly. The market has been created and is supported by the Christian culture. They’re just giving us what we want. Jesus told us that in this world we’d have trouble, but we don’t want to deal with that on the radio, and we really don’t want to deal with that in our churches. We make a group for those things that meets on Wednesday night, or we sweep it under the rug.

In a culture where struggles are swept under the rug, you can bet we aren’t going to put them on a screen. The good stories, the ones where people make tough choices, screw up, succeed, and try to figure out what it all means, are full of such struggles.

So my expectations are low. Nothing has changed sufficiently to make me think this movie or the next movie will be any different.

I have hope, though. I have hope because I believe God is bigger than us, and He works in spite of us. I have hope for the church. I don’t hate megachurches, and I’m not convinced the cool post-modern church in the coffee house has it figured out, either. We are all humans. We make mistakes. We think to highly of ourselves. We are vain. I have worshiped genuinely in small, student churches, and large, suburban churches. God can move anywhere three of us gather in His Name. I have hope, and I have hope for Christian musicians, poets, writers, and filmmakers.

We just have to be brave enough to look upward and see where we fall short. We have to be able to tear it all down if it’s not working, or if it’s working too well in the wrong way. There’s nothing wrong with making movies you can take the whole family to. There’s nothing wrong with positive music. But we have to free artists to create art that is genuine, not a celebration of our particular market segment.

October 1st, 2008 | Tags: Art, CCM, Christian Bubble, church, filmmaking, megachurch, movies, music, narcissism, postmodern, worship | Category: Art, Spirit | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL