Posted on 12/14/2007 11:28:11 AM PST by TrueKnightGalahad
I just searched the TV Guide online listings to see if a movie I recently viewed and thought quite inspirational, Facing The Giants, would be showing again in the near future. "Facing The Giants" was nowhere to be found in the search results. Astonishingly, in the list of approximately 500 films that the search yielded, the first two films (neither of which, note, contain either "Facing" or "Giants" in their titles) are: "Sex And The City: The Movie," and "The Golden Compass" - two films that are the polar opposite in message and tone of "Facing The Giants"!!!
I did another search, using the Dish Network program listings, and found that "Facing The Giants" will be airing on the STARZ movie channel twice on Monday the 17th. I again searched TV Guide's listings by using the date, and found that the film is in the program guide. I wondered why this one film, which is actually in their schedule, would not be found by the search engine (BTW, I searched "Facing The Giants" both with and without quotation marks), while the first films listed could hardly be more anti-Christian.
Moreover, the TV Guide description for "Facing The Giants" reads:
Uplifting high-school football saga about a sorry team of losers whose coach (Alex Kendrick) divines a new game plan for them and himself. Kendrick directed and co-wrote the script with his brother, Stephen. The film features an all-volunteer cast of amateur actors. University of Georgia football coach Mark Richt has a cameo.
Hmmmm...whoever wrote the precis about this film about a "sorry team of losers" thinks it important to mention a cameo film appearance by a college football coach, but apparently NOT important to mention that the "new game plan" was the team members' acceptance of Christ as their personal saviour? I haven't checked TV Guide listings further for other Christian films, but I'm wondering if there is a general anti-Christian bias throughout the site, or if "Facing The Giants" is alone in being omitted from the film database and given a description that ignores its reason for being?
My bet is it is either a simple mistake or you may have a different program listing for Starz in your market versus others.
Ya know what Billy the Kid, Atilla the Hun, and Winnie the Pooh have in common?
They all have the same middle name.
You forgot Ming the Merciless and Jack the Ripper!
That the program description might have been outsourced, as it were, is plausible. The omission of “Facing The Giants” from the TV Guide database is, on the other hand, suspect.
My TV Guide settings are specific to my location, east coast, and service provider, Dish Network....not that that’s germane, as Dish and TV Guide both list the showings on Monday the 17th. However, the search function for the TV Guide site should show results for “Facing The Giants” if it was, in fact, in its database...especially as it is in the date-specific program listing. How would you explain that a site word search would not show a result of a listing containing those words (neither “Facing” nor “Giants” are words commonly excluded from searches, and some of the results did contain those words), in light of the fact that the site’s program guide list the film showings, other than by deliberate human intervention?
I wonder if you tried to test your assumption.
I just typed the names of several Christian movies into the tvguideonline search box, and they were all there.
The ten commandments - check
Greatest story ever told - check
passion of the christ - check
chronicles of narnia - check
So, no, I can’t say I’ve noticed any type of anti-Christian bias at all in TV guide.
Vlad the Impaler!
I don’t know why your movie didn’t show up in the search, but I bet the reason “Sex And The City: The Movie” and “The Golden Compass” showed up at the top is because they paid money to come up high in search results. The only thing they really have in common with your movie is that the word “the” is in the title. Try doing a search using a random string of words that include “the,” but isn’t the name of an actual movie (or close to being a real name). I bet those two movies will pop up at or near the top every time.
“The Golden Compass” is on tv already?
Aethelred the Unready, Charles the Bald...and Minnie the Moocher.
Why do most of the people with “the” middle name have last names that skew negative? No Fred the Friendly, no Charles the Generous...just a few “the Greats” scattered here and there.
I think you’re right about the commonality of the “the.” I just searched for “The Slurk of the Ponger” (What? You’ve never heard of that classic film?), and got the same 500 results, with “Sex And The City: The Movie” and “The Golden Compass” at the top. So “Facing The Giants” is excluded from all search results - again, despite the fact that it’s in their program guide with an attached short review, so it exists on the site and search should be finding it. I know that one data point proves nothing - but it’s very strange that that one film, explicitly Christian and evangelical, doesn’t exist as far as TV Guide is concerned.
The get their descriptions from the network.
For the reviews I see when ‘hovering’ over the program schedule, that seems to be the case for synopses for programming from the major networks; films, though, appear to have a mix of in-house opinion, studio-written puffery, and professional review excerpts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.