Posted on 06/18/2004 2:44:45 PM PDT by rhema
The scene is a packed high-school assembly. A girl band called "The Christian Jewels" has just emoted (sung is the wrong word) in front of an audience waving outstretched arms. Suddenly, Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan), principal of the school, runs onto the stage, executing a 360-degree flip. Throwing an arm towards the crowd, he shouts, "Are you down with G-O-D?"
It's one of several on-target moments in Saved! (rated PG-13), a teen comedy that often viciously mocks fundamentalist/evangelical Christians. The movie is at its best when lampooning painfully forced attempts to repackage the gospel for the MTV generation and is likely to resonate with many who have attended Christian high schools.
But most of Saved! is a shallow, offensive attack on straw men—"Christians" who are either hypocrites full of malice, lunatics lost in their own delusions, or both. And, naturally, it reaches the same destination as most films in the last 50 years: Standards hurt people; true happiness is found in following your heart and accepting others.
Mary (Jena Malone) is a senior at American Eagle Christian Academy, and she has everything going for her. She's a member of the Christian Jewels, friends with ultra-popular Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), and dating a nice Christian guy. But the nice Christian guy turns out to be gay, and Mary decides to cure him. She believes that Jesus has told her to sleep with him, with her virginity later being restored in honor of her sacrifice.
The plan fails horribly, sending Mary into a tailspin. Not only is her boyfriend still gay, but now Mary is pregnant. Mary begins to see everyone around her for who they really are—mean-spirited hypocrites. She finds solace with two outcasts at school, both non-Christians who exhibit courage and compassion not apparent in any of the religious characters.
Director Brian Dannelly plays unfair (and hurts the film) by placing his characters in two different movies. The "Christians" are over-the-top cartoons, resembling reality only in the way Mickey resembles a real mouse. This works for parody, but it doesn't mesh with the rest of the film, which goes after poignancy and emotional impact.
However ripe evangelical culture is for criticism, this movie doesn't offer much of value, mostly because it's not only an assault on hypocrisy, but also on the heart of the biblical faith. It's full of lines and images designed to make the audience feel superior to the poor dupes who buy into historic Christianity.
Saved! wants to arrive at a sort of faith of its own, and its main characters don't reject Christianity by name. But they end up with merely a mushy call for tolerance and relaxed standards. It's important to remember that the world rejects the gospel not just because of its weak representatives but because it is in fact offensive. The gospel is exclusive, and, more than hypocrisy and naivete, it's this that the movie's writers don't like.
bump
Puke.
But the best thing that people can do is ignore it. The producers are no doubt hoping for evangelical outrage to boost publicity.
I didn't know much about this movie until I saw an ad for it on salon.com, which immediately told me that it had to be a slam on Christianity. The box office receipts will bear out the general public's acceptance of this film's philosophy, which means it will be available to rent at Blockbuster by this time next week.
Oh, I wish they would spare us "tendentious!" Mona Charen uses it every other sentence. Please get a thesaurus, columnists!
Sorry to use your expression, but PUKE is right!
Christianity Today gave this movie a favorable rating, if I recall correctly.
Yep, I was right -- Christianity Today gives it very positive reviews:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/saved.html
The movie-reviewing organization that I *do* respect gives this movie a more accurate review of "abhorrent":
http://www.movieguide.org/index.cgi?Playing&05/28/200410.16.30#05/28/200410.16.30
Interesting that Christianity Today, following their hit piece on MovieGuide ( http://www.movieguide.org/ctresponse.htm ), just recently began their *own* movie review site to compete with MovieGuide....
As a christian, I thought Saved was pretty good. I thought it was a fair critique of modern day christianity.
What!!?? Shallowness?!! From Hollywood??? Who would ever have believed THAT??!
Oops, kind of. I gave a link to a Christianity Today *commentary* in the Movie Reviews site. The actual *review*, while praising certain aspects of it, does not give it it's stamp of approval:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/saved.html
Their review goes too far, in my opinion, by saing that "the movie is ultimately pro-faith and does make some perceptive criticisms of evangelicals." Because there is so much anti-Christian cyncism and polluting immorality in this film, I would not have credited it with anything redemptive.
Yeah, I'm on an anti-CT rant because of their unfair article trashing MovieGuide....
Please define "modern-day Christianity."
What's fair about setting up straw men (or in this case, straw girls), knocking them down, and calling it "satire?" Good satire requires the target to be real, not a caricature.
As a Christian since my single digits, I have never met a person like either "Mary" (so Biblically ignorant and stupid she would think that Jesus would tell her to fornicate to save a boy from homosexuality) or "Hilary Faye" (who threw a Bible at "Mary" in the film's signature scene). Have you?
As I wrote in another thread regarding Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11:
You seem to be presuming that "much needed introspection" is going to be accomplished by seeing the movie. Why do you think Saved! to accomplish that?
#61 of 154
[Quick1]: Me, I'll refrain from judging [Fahrenheit 9/11] until I've seen it myself.That works fine when it comes to television shows, because television ratings are not precise; they are more like a scientific poll. The money producers get for TV shows is upfront, and your viewership, regardless of whether you like it or you don't, is not counted if you are not a "Nielsen family."
On the other hand, when it comes to motion pictures shown in a theater, the only way you can "judge" it is after you have already put your hard-earned dollars in the coffers of the filmmakers, and if you are indeed offended by the product, guess what? You're not getting that money back. It's theirs now. Your adverse judgment doesn't mean jack squat to them, because you've already paid them to give your opinion.
For example: I am not going to see the new movie Saved!, the satire that supposedly is "sweetly subversive" in targeting Christian youth. The filmmaker, a former parochial school student, goes to great pains to insist the movie doesn't "bash" Christians, but from everything I have seen and read of the movie, I believe it presents a caricatured subculture of comically stupid anti-Semitic gay-hating judgmental "Christians" (the 'bad' ones) and contrasts them with sweet, cool, Christians who are accepting of Jews (as if that was unusual), teen pregnancy and homosexuality. (the 'good' ones).
Now, I can only guess at what the movie looks like as a whole, but the critics and the filmmakers (including R.E.M's Michael Stipe, who co-wrote "Losing My Religion") all say, "See it, and judge for yourself," fully knowing that if I do see it, and verify my suspicions, I will have had to have paid them to do it, thus coaxing money out of me that they wouldn't have gotten if I had just trusted my instincts and ignored the movie.
Sorry, I am not going to be suckered into that.
I meant, "Why do you think YOU NEED Saved! to accomplish that?
There's a lot in MovieGuide's review, but this is their conclusion:
"SAVED! is a bigoted, frontal attack on Christians, who are depicted as confused and mean-spirited. The movie’s insane conclusion is that sinners are better people and have stronger family bonds."
A growing number of Christians are approaching their entertainment choices with increasing discernment, willing to forgo a popular movie because of its corrupt philosophy and/or corrupting content.
Besides looking to the "heart" of the movie (its philosophy), MovieGuide also just breaks down the "content." Here's the breakdown for this movie:
"Intense anti-Christian bigotry and politically correct attack, with constant mocking of Christianity, Christian lifestyles and Christian beliefs, as well as a lack of any understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian theology, some references to other religions being right, a do what you want/follow your heart Romanticism, and pro-homosexual storyline; eight obscenities, 17 profanities and the entire movie is blasphemous; minor violence, such as shoving, girl throws Bible at another girl, store items fall over on couple, and girl crashes car into big statue of Jesus, knocking off His head; kissing, fornication but off-screen, shot of male porn site on the Internet, several shots of homosexual porn magazine, and lots of references to sex; upper male nudity, tight T-shirts on women, and salacious camera shots; alcohol and drunkenness; chain smoking and drug references; and, mean-spirited politics of envy and pro-adultery storyline."
I don't need to expose myself to that. I just don't need to. Call me a goody two shoes Christian out of touch with my culture....
Thanks for the reality check, Theo.
Getting non-Christian actors to play stereotypically-bad Christians is like hiring white actors to put on blackface. I don't see a huge difference.
In this genre, God is not the enemy, maturity is the arch foe.
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