Religion Understands Not Hollywood

Yesterday, the movie Saved!, a movie about mean students at a Christian academy, came out in limited release (LA/NY/Chicago?). It is actually about a girl who tries to save her boyfriend from his homosexual tendencies only to become pregnant herself, and ostracized from school. So, guess what? The conservatives are having a field day wth hating this movie, even to the point of getting so flustered they don't do any research.

Yesterday, the movie Raising Helen, a movie in which a young aunt suddenly becomes the guardian of her now-deceased sister's three children, and also falls in love with the hot and hunky pastor, was also released.

National Review only reviewed Raising Helen (which, by the way, got a 23% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning 23% of the reviewers liked it), and liked it, or at least liked Pastor Dan. Another National Review article also commented on Pastor Dan, and liked him alot too. They both believe that Pastors have been either used for faddish methods (horror movies) or "sadistic, hypocritical killjoys," and even mentions Heathers in that vein. For those of you who don't remember, this Pastor was just a cynical preacher at funerals.

Front Page Magazine, on the other hand, attacked Saved! as being typical of Hollywood's treatment of religion. This is what gets the ire of the conservatives, I guess. He lists off some movies, most of which aren't really Hollywood, but independent. The "Hollywood" movies he names are, The Last Temptation of Christ, Priest, Dogma, The Magdalene Sisters, The Order, Stigmata, The Saint, The Basketball Diaries, and Heaven Help Us. Last Temptation is one of those classic stories of not being a Hollywood movie. It is Martin Scorcese directing an art film challenging faith as we know it, but still being relatively honest in its dealings with religion. In fact, I imagine it caused more than just me to question their agnosticism. As soon as word got out he was making it, he lost his funding for the movie and had to go completely independent early on. Priest is British, as in The Magdalene Sisters. In fact, The Magdalene Sisters is a historical movie, and not supposed to be all that fictionalized, if at all. Which brings us to the independent The Basketball Diaries, which was also based on biographical writings.

Mr. Feder also says two really really strange dealings which lead me to believe that Christianity and Catholicism is a cult. The first is that Hollywood pushes the concept of gender sameness, where gender roles are socially imposed instead of reality based. As most people know, a gender role is socially imposed, though some of it might be genetic. One only has to look at the wide range of females in my family (and in theirs too, probably) to know that gender roles aren't exactly everything. Especially with so many women becoming financially independent and secure... The other thing he writes is Hollywood's agenda, which the Conservatives are trying to stop, includes "a contraceptive culture, erotic indoctrination masquerading as sex education" (not to mention "abortion on demand"). Is there anything wrong with a contraceptive culture? People worldwide, throughout the ages, have been having pre-marital sex, and getting pregnant. Hence, a shotgun wedding, or various other euphemisms. As for the erotic indoctrination, I don't know about you, but I didn't learn how to give/recieve blow jobs, eat out a girl, or various positions in my class. We saw sterile drawings of a penis entering a vagina, and spewing without thrusting. We also saw genetalia with STDs. MMM, nothing gets me hornier than a wart covered vagina.

And, though it is only one case, Keeping the Faith, for all its suckiness, was missed by all three writers. This is the Ben Stiller and Edward Norton movie about a priest and a rabbi pining for the same girl. It was really slow, and should have been half and hour shorter, but alot of people really liked it. It wasn't demeaning to either religion, and it was actually a sweet movie. I didn't like it though.

So, with a distinct lack of research, and they're religious movie knowledge being based on the bottom of the barrel (Stigmata?!), the Conservatives are basically retarded and need to be Saved!