US News
Protecting Christian Values in Hollywood
By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent
CBNNews.com - WASHINGTON - Ever see That 70s Show and get embarrassed or offended by the sex and drug humor that permeates it? Evangelical Christian Dean Battali is right in the middle of that show, as one of the main writers.
Feel like you could not let your kids see the X-Men movies because of the rough language? Christian Ralph Winter actually produced those X-men flicks, along with the recent Fantastic Four, which had its share of naughty words.
What is up with these guys? How do they feel about perpetrating such coarseness on the culture?
Winter replied, "Not all of life is PG; wish it was; it's not."
"I think some of the shows I've worked on have actually been damaging to our culture, and I'm not sure Christians should watch them all the time," Battali said.
Winter says he looks carefully at bad language in scripts coming his way.
"But I'm not afraid of that. I've made R-rated movies, and if I think that's warranted, I'll do it again," Winter said, "because sometimes you need to show the depravity of where people come from, to show how they can be changed into something else."
Battali said, "Many people watching the show don't even know the kinds of jokes or stories I might have been kept off the air, or the different kinds of jokes that I've put in there that are a little less mean, a little less sexual, a little less toxic than the ones that were in its place."
And the struggle of being a believer in sin-soaked Hollywood does not just affect the wildly-successful types like Battali and Winter, but also the many Christians at the bottom rungs, just trying to make their mark in small plays and theater productions on stages all around the L.A. area.
Some feel like they just have to put their faith on hold.
Barbara Nicolosi of Act One, which creates workshops for Christian writers, admits that for years she steered Christian screenwriters away from doing scripts that were too religious, because "none of the Christians in Hollywood are writing religious stuff."
The Act One workshops have now become so prominent that they were featured on ABC News and in a recent documentary, "Rated R: Republicans in Hollywood."
Nicolosi can hardly believe, though, what has happened with hits such as Narnia and The Passion.
"Well…when we weren't lookin', the whole world flipped," she said. "and suddenly, secular Hollywood…we're commercial to them!"
Battali sure hopes that is so.
"I came to Hollywood because I wanted to get Christian characters on television and in films, specifically," Battali recalled. "That's why I thought God wanted me to come to Hollywood."
So far, though, Hollywood's been cold to Battali's overtly Christian ideas.
He commented, "When I go into the offices behind close doors and talk to the executives about the kind of shows I want to do, which involve Christian characters specifically, they just tilt their head and don't quite get it."
As for Winter, he is making no apology for his rougher, coarser films.
"It is an R-rated world, and I mean, it's ugly," Winter said.
But in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, Hollywood produced almost every one of their movies -- even the most hard-boiled, hard-hitting ones -- without cussing, blatant sex, or blood and guts.
Winter, though, doubts those days can return. "I think you're going to have to walk off into a different time warp to do that. I don't think there's any going back," he stated.
And Battali feels, unfortunately, that Christians have to prove themselves in Hollywood's R-rated world before they will be unleashed to create a godlier world on the screen.
He declared, "It's probably better for you to paint an apple before you paint the crucifixion. And it takes awhile for us to perfect our craft and reputation. So give us a little bit of time."
Phil Cooke is a believer who works as a go-between for Hollywood and a number of Christian ministries.
He says now that Narnia and The Passion have paved the way, Christian artists must write better and strike while the iron is hot, but, "I've had probably seven Jesus films sent to me.scripts sent to my office.", Cooke said, "since The Passion. And it's too late for that. We've got to be thinking what's going to happen a year from now, two years from now, three years from now that's going to touch a cord in the culture."
Both Cooke and Nicolosi warn that if spiritual is selling and Christians are not meeting the need, Hollywood's non-believers unfortunately will.
"I actually had a producer say to me from a major production company a few weeks ago," Nicolosi said, "'we're in a position now of having to make movies we don't want to see.What is problematic about that is that it's basically pandering, they're guessing at what Christians want to watch."
Bottom line is that there are probably going to be a lot more movies and shows with spiritual themes coming out of Hollywood. But it may not be a kind of spiritualism you will like.
So the Christians in Hollywood are begging talented believers to come get involved, even if it means some mucking in the mud first, to prove their talent.
Battali admitted, "It's a daily struggle as a Christian, here in Hollywood. But part of it is you have to do the job sort of like Joseph in prison: you have to make your reputation, and some day you get called into Pharaoh's court."
"Anybody can get a hearing right now in Hollywood, if you can walk in the door and say 'I have something for the Passion audience.' Because they're very insecure about what the 'Passion audience' wants," Nicolosi said.
Matthew Pinto of Catholic Outreach observed that, "This is a powerful medium to reach people in such vast numbers, that I think we would be grossly negligent if we didn't pursue this."
Dallas Jenkins is a small-time movie producer and a Christian, who is sick and tired of fellow-believers' fear of Tinseltown -- indeed, he mocks it.
"It's okay to go to tribes in Africa, and it's okay to go to inner cities," Jenkins stated, "but Hollywood is too dangerous."
Battali remarked, "Christians need to stop looking at Hollywood as if it's Sodom and Gomorrah."
And Winter believes that creative Christians need to open up their minds. "We want to tell stories that 'gee, if it doesn't have the sinner's prayer, if it doesn't have someone who gets saved, if it doesn't have some of those things that we hold dear,' then somehow it's not really a good movie that Christians are going to come out and embrace. And I don't think that's true," Winter declared.
Cooke said, "One of my great challenges, in the last 20 years, is getting Christians to realize that a successful movie does not have to have an altar call at the end. We don't have to be so explicit in order to get the power of God out there…It's interesting that Jesus spent three years in ministry on the earth.pretty much risked that entire three years on telling parables…stories that He didn't explain, in many cases."
"If you take the Old Testament and turn that into a film, it would no question be rated R, because it tackles very difficult subjects," Jenkins asserted. "But that's the power of the Gospel -- that the Gospel can redeem the dirtiest of souls."
And Winter says that Christians better beware of hypocrisy when they judge their Hollywood brothers for making R-rated entertainment, because with so much of America Christian, believers must be going to a lot of those questionable movies, or those films would not make so much money.
"Unfortunately, even PG-13 and R-rated movies are successful because of Christians," Winter admitted. "They have to be going. If they weren't going, they wouldn't be doing that kind of business."
And Cooke says that if we want less offensive movies and shows, we have to gently educate Hollywood's non-believers, who often cannot see why sex, swearing, and blasphemy would offend.
Cooke said, "They just don't get it. So as believers, I feel, one of our great challenges is to show Hollywood in a very gracious way.that's one of the keys. We can't rant, we have to be very gracious.and show them why we believe what we believe -- why these things are important to us. And I think once they see it and see the size of the market out there, it'll have a huge impact."
A new book, Behind the Screen, put together by Hollywood pros who teach at Act One, makes the point that boycotting Hollywood does no good at all.
Family-film developer Donovan Jacobs writes about the Southern Baptist Convention boycott of Disney products started in 1997. "Over the last seven years, the boycott has had no impact on Disney's creative or business policies. Just a couple of years after the boycott began, I met a Touchstone executive who hadn't even heard of it."
Matthew Pinto of Catholic Outreach says that instead of boycotts, Christians should engage Hollywood, and go see more movies.
"It's about dollars," Pinto declared, "and if we support those things that are good, true and beautiful in their essence, they will hear us and I think they will respond with more things that will reflect our worldview."
Even the Southern Baptist leader Richard Land is pushing Christians to flock to good movies and make them successful. He says it is sort of like a boycott in reverse.
Meanwhile, for those believers actually working in Hollywood, they say their very presence in a very un-Christian place is an important witness.
Battali said, "I was told by a writer I work with, 'Dean, I'm so glad that I know you, 'cuz now I know that all Christians aren't freaks.' "
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