Outside Hollywood...

So, I just finished "Outside Hollywood: The Young Christian's Guide to Vocational Filmmaking" by Isaac Botkin (see www.outside-hollywood.com in my links to the right). This young man clearly has a firm grasp of the movie industry and how powerfully and effectively has shaped (and can shape) our culture. In fact, I think that the first 6 chapters should be required reading for any Christian couple who intends to procreate at any time in the future. He does a great deal to expose the Hollywood fantasy world where "the cops are bigots, the military is stupid, the CIA is evil, all vehicles explode when crashed, all dogs are invincible, all Christians are nutcases, all Buddhists are supernaturally wise, all Muslims are peaceful, all businessmen are corrupt, all fathers are stupid, and sin never has any consequences because there is no sovereign God." This fantasy world can be very subtly misleading to influential children whose parents are allowing the public school system to reinforce the fantasy that is being taught by broadcast entertainment. Since children are being bombarded by secular (and Marxist, quite frankly) views of sex, morality, personal conduct, politics and political "correctness," parents MUST be deliberate, coordinated, strategic, and surgical in their militant defense of their home and family. YOUR family's Christian values are under siege from a numerically superior and strategically coordinated force; the only way that you will maintain your defensive perimeter is by working overtime to carefully teach your children the truth, and by trusting in the strategy that God has given us. This is part of the reason that homeschooling is so popular with Christians; it significantly reduces the effectiveness of the enemy's indoctrination and propaganda.

I can hear you thinking "he's gone native!!" Here's a great example: what is the first thought that comes to mind when I say "McCarthyism" or "The Red Scare?" In fact, the very name "The Red SCARE" indicates the kind of attitude that our culture has about that era. Go back to that first thought you had. Was it "paranoid delusions" or something similar? Yeah, I used to consider that real possibility that McCarthy was just a paranoid witch hunter, too. Add this to your thought process: "According to Lloyd Billingsley, it didn't help matters that the first chairman of what became the [House Un-American Activities Committee] was New York Democrat Samuel Dickstein. As the recently declassified 'Venona' documents (decrypts of Soviet cables) reveal, Dickstein moonlighted for Soviet intelligence---not out of ideology, but for money." So, a House Chairman and the head of "The Red Scare" Committee was selling secrets to the Soviets. But, the Hollywood movie industry successfully sold a new myth to the American public that "Communists are innocent and noble; American authorities are repressive, reactionary, and tyrannical." And I'm willing to bet that most of you fell for it. I know I did for a while.

My point was not to comment on the efficaciousness or validity of The Red Scare, but merely to illustrate how effective Hollywood has been (and can be) for indoctrinating our culture and influencing what our children believe to be real. The single most effective indoctrination is the subtle one that people don't even notice. You see why it's so effective? Because even now, you're thinking "it's only entertainment." The fact that you DON'T pay attention makes it that much more threatening. How much greater is the threat to a child who IS learning from it, but doesn't realize it and cannot think critically about world views?

Now for the other side...

Unfortunately, there was a central issue of his with which I disagreed. His form (not formula) for a good story is as follows: "A flawed but sympathetic protagonist (main character) summons the moral courage to face and then overcome increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable moral tests to achieve a compelling desire." This is all well and good and it will teach our children that making the right choices is a good thing, but it is an easy Christianity. Botkin does condemn those Christians who make Christianity even easier by compromising their moral compass to what Hollywood finds acceptable so that they can sell their movie. The problem that I have is that he presents another form of easy Christianity (albeit somewhat less easy). A Christianity that tells stories of heroes who always (eventually) make the right choices and subsequently succeed, fails to answer those most difficult and most important questions: what happens when the hero dies? what happens when the bad guy DOES get away with it? what happens when a thoroughly good, Christian couple accidentally kill their own 2-year-old child through no fault of their own (the friends of the author of a different book)? why do bad things happen to good people? These are the questions to which our culture is desperately seeking answers. The truth is that even when the hero loses, there is a Hero who will always conquer. Even when the good guy dies, THE Good Guy will take his place and finish the job. Even when things are as bad as they can possibly get, there is still Someone who will rescue those who trust Him to.

There are other questions that need to be answered by Christian filmmakers, but they are difficult questions and they are not pleasant to discuss. Lazy Christians will stick to the stories that have a happy ending and a successful hero like Peter Parker (aka Spiderman). Now, I'm not saying that these stories aren't important. Quite the contrary, in fact. These kinds of stories are essential to teach our children about the virtue of choosing good and the destruction that comes from choosing evil. In fact, even a courageous Christian filmmaker will tell these stories, but he will not tell ONLY these stories. A courageous filmmaker will tell the story of Saul whose rule was stripped from him by God. He will tell the story of Samson who continually made the wrong decision, and even in the end made a selfish and vengeful decision. He will tell the stories of Stephen and John the Baptist and Nathaniel Saint who were NOT rescued from hardship and pain even thought they were good and Godly men. He will tell the story of Horatio Spafford who lost all three daughters in a shipwreck through no fault of his own.

Our children don't need to be lulled into a fantasy world where sin has no consequences and reality is what we make of it, but they also don't need to be convinced that if they just hold out hope long enough then they're certain to be rescued, or if they do the right thing then nothing bad will happen, or if they just try real hard they'll make it to Heaven. They need to be like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah who were certain that God could deliver them "but EVEN IF NOT," they would still hold to God's ways. Christians need to admit that sometimes God's ways don't pay off in this life. Yeah yeah, all that "pie-in-the-sky by and by" silliness and whatnot. That's not going to make courageous Christian children. What's going to make courageous Christian children is the realistic anticipation that God might not intervene to save them from pain and difficulty, because then they can face the pain and difficulty knowing that God's image and His ways are worth pain and difficulty, not because they're going to get some kind of unimaginable reward in Heaven. It's unimaginable! That makes it a little difficult to look forward to when you have to choose between the unknown reward and impending death. I admit, it's okay to look forward to our reward, and the Bible even teaches that we ought to try to earn a greater reward, but that (by itself) leads to an attitude of selfishness, not courage. With a realistic view of God and of how He does things, our children can grow up to be the kind of Godly men and women who stare death in the face, and regardless of whether or not He chooses to rescue them miraculously, they will earn their reward with courage, dignity and consistently demonstrating the image of their Creator.


All quotations are from "Outside Hollywood: The Young Christian's Guide to Vocational Filmmaking," authored by Isaac Botkin and protected by copyright.
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