Only two months after 20th Century Fox announced plans to aggressively target the Christian market with a new FoxFaith label, the Weinstein Company–whose predecessor, Miramax, produced such edgy fare as “Fargo”–has announced that they will also create a faith-based movie label. The Weinstein Company is not, at this time anyway, creating their own faith-themed entertainment, but they will be working with Christian entertainment companies such as Impact Productions to distribute their products to movie theaters as well as direct-to- DVD projects. Adaptations of work by two popular Christian authors–Joyce Meyer and Max Lucado–will be the first two projects The Weinstein Company will release.
Many Christian film critics are noting–with more than a little sense of irony and a great deal of disappointment–that while Contemporary Christian Music has finally earned mainstream respectability and has worked its way out of the spiritual ghetto, Hollywood is now creating a Christian film subculture–with the church’s enthusiastic help.
I certainly echo the frustrated sentiments of talented critic and author Jeffrey Overstreet, who has posted these comments about the growth of Christian cinema over at his blog: “Walls and boundaries. That’s what we want. Neat and easy labels and categories. All the better for judging other people, for staying where we are, for complimenting ourselves on our choices.”
posted December 18, 2006 at 10:52 pm
I almost want to rub my hands together and evilly laugh. It’s taken us Christians so long to deconstruct and reconstruct the idea of what “Christian music” can be, finally realizing that the only thing that makes CCM different is that it is marketed to Christians and that you can just be “in the world” and making quality rock and roll. I thought we dodged a bullet since there was no CCMovies, but somebody found out you can make $$$, and here we go!! As somebody who could, in a very oversimplified way, be referred to as a “Christian music critic” (not a critic of CCM), I’ve been jealous of the film people and the way they haven’t had a sub-par, copycat industry to try to gently guide people away from (not that they haven’t had other issues to deal with – just ask Jeffrey). Evangelicals have been steadily engaging in thoughtful interaction with “secular” movies for years, but God forbid an evangelical music critic suggest that, say, Green Day was better than MxPx. The pendulum seems to be swinging, though.