(Display Name not set)September 2006 Archives

The long-anticipated FoxFaith Movies, a division of 20th Century Fox, officially came into being this week, a great triumph for whoever is putting out the new division's stationery, with little relevance for the rest of us. Fox has been in the Christian movie business for some years, mostly in distributing DVDs of films as big as "The Passion" and as insignificant as "Love Comes Softly," the Hallmark-channel-flavored film of the Christian bestseller by Jeanette Oke.

The FoxFaith moniker will allow Fox to bolster its already-thriving marketing efforts for biblical films like "One Night With the King," (left) through churches; according to The New York Times, some 90,000 churches get regular information about Fox films. Perhaps more importantly, it will extend Fox's power to flack faith-free but family-friendly movies such as the animated baseball fantasy "Everybody's Hero" and an upcoming remake of "Flicka." A Fox official told the Times, "It’s a Good Housekeeping seal, a marketing umbrella for these pictures, so that people can have confidence the movies won’t violate their core beliefs."

The key here is that FoxFaith films are as much about what they don't show as what they do. "Love Comes Softly," the first Oke novel released as a Fox movie two years ago, is a simple romance and is faith-based only in the sense that faithful Christians don't have to worry that a torrid bedroom scene is just around the corner.

The Russian Space Agency recently turned down Madonna's bid to get a spot on an upcoming mission. This must come as a disappointment to those Christians who would love to see the pop diva shot into space, once and for all.

Barely recovered from her latest U.S. concert tour--which includes the spectacle of the star posing on an enormous glittering cross and is now making waves internationally--some American clergy have been upset anew by NBC's plan to show the disco-crucifix footage on "Access Hollywood."

“By sponsoring Madonna’s mockery of Christ, NBC will insult the majority of Americans and millions more around the globe," says Reverend Rob Schenck, who is president of an ecumenical group called the National Clergy Council.

Rev. Schenck, of course, begs the question as to whether Madonna is mocking Christ. Artists--and as glitzy and overwrought as Madonna can be, she still appears on the Arts page--have long availed themselves of the cross to express their religious views. Mel Gibson did as much, and perhaps offended as manywith his ecstatically gushing "Passion of the Christ." The fact that Rev. Schenck may like one and not the other doesn't mean Madonna is dissing Jesus.

Instead, in her ham handed way, Madonna appears to be calling those who espouse Christian principles to account. Here is the account of a Russian journalist who attended Madonna's concert there last week (over the objections of the Orthodox Church):

What I--and, I assume, most casual observers--did not know was what the song would be and what the point would be. The song was "Live to Tell," her 1986 hit, and the point was not subtle. Flashing behind her on a giant video screen were the faces of children and some statistics: the number of children orphaned by AIDS in Africa and the fact that without help they will all die before the age of 2. And then there was a long quote from "The Sheep and the Goats" story from the New Testament."

At the end of the song, she makes a pitch for donations for these orphans.

Not coincidentally--and, okay, perhaps cynically--Madonna announced this week that she would work to raise $3 million to improve the water supply in the African nation of Malawi, where she's already sponsoring a home for orphans. If she's mocking Christ, she's found a nice way to assuage her guilt.

Baylor University's Institute on Studies of Religion is pitching their new report, "American Piety in the 21st Century," as a testament to how diverse and complex religious feelings in our country really are. The report does show that many religiously unaffiliated people pray, and that "The Passion," produced by a conservative Catholic and championed by white evangelicals, was most popular among African-American Protestants. The subtext of the data, however, is to show how culturally divided we are.

It's right there in the charts relating church attendance to consumption of the controversial thriller "The Da Vinci Code." Quite simply, Baylor found, the less you attend church, the more likely you are to have read the book. Only 16 percent of evangelical Protestants read Dan Brown's novel; those who gave their affiliation as "None" were twice as likely to have read it, and "Other" were more than three times as likely.

On the other hand, "VeggieTales," Rick Warren, and the "Left Behind" series all appeal to 20-25 percent of the population—a number close enough to the percentage of evangelicals in the national body to suggest that as popular as those products have become, they are still confined mostly to their home communities.

Since St. Paul, Christians have asked the question, What influences you most: Christ or culture? Judging from Baylor's report, the answer might be that what influences us most is neither Christ nor culture, but which Christian culture we come from.

Fox's brainless sitcom, "Til Death," a comedy about "love, death, and marriage," starring Brad Garrett ("Everybody Loves Raymond"), has a lot of positive things to say about the institution of matrimony today. None of them, however, are contained in the pilot's drab depiction of neighboring suburban couples nagging and sniping at each other over the husband's right to install a pool table in the dining room. Nor are they in the wan closing scene, which concludes that love means having someone to drive you to the hospital.

No, the upbeat news from "Til Death" is that since "The Honeymooners," which clearly inspired this show, series like Paul Reiser's '90s hit "Mad About You" or the more recent "The King of Queens" have recognized there's more to satire in how couples try to work with, rather than around, each other. Televised marital relations, in other words, have come a long way.

That said, Garrett does a fair impression of Jackie Gleason's knowing oaf, dedicated to enlightening Norton-ish newlywed Eddie Kaye Thomas ("American Pie") about the facts of married life. But his insights, over Thomas's protests about the value of communication and mutual respect, are little more evolved than Ralph Cramden's of 50 years ago, and, despite that, lack even Ralph's "Bang! Zoom!"

The only reason to tune in tonight to Fox's "Standoff"--from a religion-interested point of view, at least--is to get an update on the state of Hollywood's relationship with Islamic fundamentalism. The show, about a pair of FBI hostage negotiators (Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt) who are also sweet on each other, reveals that we're in a post-Osama period in which terror is a plot point, not a theme in itself, and a man in a Middle Eastern beanie and a vest of homemade explosives isn't a vengeful hater of mankind, but maybe just a mixed-up kid with a Mommy problem.

But no one will watch "Standoff" for its cogency, which is already compromised by the notion that even a major city will have two traffic-halting, building-clearing hostage situations in a week. It's when the fast-talking psychologists turn their mad chatter to romance that the show, debuting tonight after "House," gets interesting.