Understanding The Message Behind The Movies

News Blaze ^ | 8/20/11 | Chuck Ness

[Tom Hawks]

When I first read the title of the book, "The Message Behind The Movie", my initial response to the title was, the message behind all the movies made today is bad! Now I don't claim to be a movie critic, but I do admit to being very critical of the product put out by Hollywood these days. It's not an opinion I've had all my life however.

Truth is, until I gave my life to Christ I was more of an agnostic when it came to my opinion of movies. Like many Americans, I was oblivious to the influence movies and television had on the way I looked at the world. Whenever I heard others complaining about the bad influence movies had upon society I would shrug my shoulders and consider them a bit too critical for life. I mean, after all, it was just entertainment as far as I was concerned.

After I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, something changed. All of a sudden those rose colored glasses I saw the world through cracked, and the truth began to seep into my consciousness. Eventually I began to see the world differently, and I started to realize how much of my life had been influenced by the movies I watched through the years. Eventually I became so enraged by the way Hollywood movies had become propaganda films for leftist political agendas and immoral lifestyles that I not only stopped going the theater, but I also gave up on television.

So when a friend asked me to read a book about the movies my first instinct caused me to reject the idea. Then I read the title, "The Message Behind The Movie". I'll admit that while the title may have grabbed

[Tom Hawks]

Interesting review about a book that can help Christians discerning what movies are about, and how to use them to evangelize those who are not Christians.

I read this book last year and I was very impressed with the way the author opened my eyes up to understanding movies.

It really did improve my ability to reach out to some of my friends who are not Christians, but seem to be all caught up in the culture of today's movies. I can better use the movies they like to explain the moral teachings of Christ without offending them.

[Last Dakotan]

Eventually I became so enraged by the way Hollywood movies had become propaganda films for leftist political agendas and immoral lifestyles that I not only stopped going the theater...

I'm sticking with that plan.

[FrogMom]

Heard about the last 5 mins of Rango today. Gdaughter was watching it.

I heard “For the good of the collective” and “Thank you, comrades” and started hollering to get that crap off my TV.

[Tom Hawks]

Discernment starts at a young age.

I hope you explained to her why it was worthless to watch.

Then when she becomes of age, she too will understand how to see propaganda being weaved into the plots of movies and TV shows.

[GOP Poet]

Bookmark

[GOP Poet]

The old Passion of Joan of Ark can also resonate with those who are agnostics. Maybe it is because of her acting or the circumstance. But it is a powerful portrayal of one’s courage and commitment towards Christ. (not the recent Joan of ark film but the old one entitled The Passion of Joan of Ark—black and white fil you can find on You Tube.)

[Tom Hawks]

Thanks, I’ll look for it. I am a huge fan of the older b&w movies. They could actually act. What a concept, people who can act staring in films sold to the public on the strength of that actors ability to convince you they are who they are playing.

Today’s actors could learn a few things from the classics that has casts of thousands instead of computers of gigabyte digitalized people and scenery added after the fact.

[napscoordinator]

It was wife’s time to pick the movie this past weekend and she picked The Help. It actually was pretty decent. A few weekends ago it was my turn and I chose Horrible Bosses which was pretty funny too. I think there are many good movies out there but you have to be choosey.

[moviefan8]

Thanks, I’ll look for it. I am a huge fan of the older b&w movies. They could actually act. What a concept, people who can act staring in films sold to the public on the strength of that actors ability to convince you they are who they are playing. Today’s actors could learn a few things from the classics that has casts of thousands instead of computers of gigabyte digitalized people and scenery added after the fact.

I love classic movies as well and Turner Classic Movies is one of the few channels I frequently watch. Hopefully Robert Osborne gets well soon. This channel has made older films more available and accessible to everyone. This is one of the great ideas that Ted Turner had. However, I detest the idea of colorizing black and white film.

I am very impressed with the design of the movie sets and what they were able to do with the technology available a long time ago. They were very creative.

A lot of the old motion pictures are just as bad as some made today.

The studio system was great in some respects, but it did have some negatives. Also, there was the Hays Code that was in effect for a long time. These were some of the factors in motion picture production that are different than today.

There are some very good films today. Several examples are The Debt, Senna, and Captain America: First Avenger.

One thing I don't really care for in recent films is the overuse of 3D. It isn't needed and adds nothing to some motion pictures.

[wardaddy]

Hollywood is mostly governed by folks who hate the messaage of behavior found in Christianity...they loathe it...with their every fiber.

It’s providence...I was raised being told the world would not always be religious like in my southern youth and be prepared to deal with it

Well the folks (95%) running Hollywood today have contempt for traditional America and by default Christendom...180 degrees opposite from their predecessors who ran Hollywood 50-75 years ago and loved this land of opportunity and freedom....HUAC notwithstanding

[dsc]

“HUAC notwithstanding”

Have you read a book called “Hollywood Party?”

Very informative, I thought.

[Varda]

Crap like that never made it to my TV. I pre-watched all movies and shows before they played in my house.

The internet helps too.
http://www.pluggedin.com/videos.aspx
http://www.screenit.com/search_movies.html

[wardaddy]

no, I have not....but will look it up

[wardaddy]

It actually was pretty decent.

I shudder to think about how Obama loving ..now totally northernized Kathryn Stockett ..the darling of the Atlantic crowd actually treats where I grew up.

My grandfather was a contemporary of her grandfather's and I duck hunted at the Caldwell place in Sidon Miss for over a decade as a teen with her dad Robert.

I can tell you having being surrounded by black help too as a boy that we did not treat our help that way at all and I doubt Robert Sr or Jr did either.

She makes a big deal about separate staff bathrooms and dishes...anyone here every been in a Manhattan mansion...I have...same thing...The Biltmore..same thing...Newport...same thing. Same thing about it's so awful to call them maids or help...geezuss how silly...I guess housekeeper is so much sweeter and all..like stewardess versus flight attendant..same job.

We have folks who come clean out house every two weeks...we have nothing for staff like that but were it a huge house it might come with it.

Kathryn Stockett moved to New York with serious issues with mom and dad who divorced and her brother who finds her a cultural traitor and wrote a book she thought would endear her to her new world and it worked.

I have read enough of the book to know it's just another "bad South" piece of tripe meant to make folks feel morally superior.

Not sure how the movie is but I can only imagine...I have heard black political groups feel it's not damning of whites enough and makes black men look bad.

Whatever..I'm over it...you the think the Old South was bad...come to Jackson proper now and enjoy...check out how all is now so much better since evil white folks have been driven from power there. It's a veritable paradise over on Lynch street. or Delta Drive

Sorry...not your fault...I just take this one personally...an honest movie about the transition of the South the past 50 years would be refreshing but will never happen...you are either gonna get this crap or Black Snake Moan or some other tripe...Steel Magnolias..though a chick flick was non offensive except for casting Olympia Dukakis

I read an interview with Robert Jr (lawyer and retired real estate guy who was very gutsy visionary sort) about his daughter Kathryn and her book...he wondered how could she write with such knowledge about something she based 10 years before her birth and that after she spent almost 20 years in Manhattan that she was a New Yorker now and "not one of us anymore". When asked if he had her phone number, he said "no". Kathryn now lives in Atlanta with her maiden name married with one kid to some computer guy from up north..ironic the name thing..estranged but keeps the name. Her family was never Klan...that woulda been so stupid...no way...they were many social rungs above that..her grandfather may have joined the Citizen's Council...not sure..many rich men did.

One of the maids is suing Kathryn for using her as an inspiration with no credit and her brother..a lawyer..is supposedly behind it...bad blood there...in that family. I don't know her..she was child when I was a mid teen and up..but her dad was nice enough and I participated in their wagon rides they had in the fall and everyone knew who they were because they had owned all the bottomland in downtown Jackson and the Interstate and fairgrounds and state bldgs and hotels came in and made them rich...folks knew her parents were estranged and her mom was beautiful but spirited and ..hmmm..hard to keep home at night...it's not easy to say really..anyhow...The Help comes from that..it's complicated but it's just comes across to me as another denunciation of a way of life I grew up with written for a purpose and feeds right into folks who believe these myths...myths designed to make them feel superior in their homogeneous enclaves outside the south and relieve whatever misplaced guilt those in the South harbor..obviously not me.

Where I grew up...folks who were nasty to their help were frowned upon...and I never once heard of sexual harassment of a black maid...lord they were usually rotund and excellent cooks...ridiculous but hardly sex objects to anyone this side of Tallulah Bankhead

This is a post I have meant to write over this book...not directed at you as a flame naps. I though about doing a thread on it to rant.

[struggle]

>>Whatever..I’m over it...you the think the Old South was bad...come to Jackson proper now and enjoy...check out how all is now so much better since evil white folks have been driven from power there. It’s a veritable paradise over on Lynch street. or Delta Drive

I taught 3 years at Wingfield High School in Jackson, you know, the hellhole on Raymond Road, and I can say that the hard-working blacks are FEVERISHLY TRYING TO GET OUT OF JACKSON. Jackson politics is a joke.

I lived in a neighborhood in Byram that was half black and white. No crime, no loud music, and no loud parties, because the black community on that street would deal with any section 8/renters that end up there.

What is immensely sad is the kids that I taught in Wingfield and the total abdication of responsibility by the black leadership of Jackson. The black leadership of JPS (Jackson Public Schools) gets a $150 million dollar bond issue passed to rebuild schools, and guess what happens? $30 million of it disappears by the end of the year. The superintendent resigns after spending hundreds upon thousands defending himself legally from a principal that he sexually harassed. Peeples Middle gets left in its decrepit state (with cracks down the middle of concrete ceilings, reflecting the moral cracks that caused 9th grade girls to walk into my classroom with cute pictures of their 3 year old children).

You want to help and push these kids into a life of happiness and self-responsibility, and some of the kids get it, BUT THEY DON’T see this in the black leaders around them. The kids know that the mayor and city council are a bunch of money grubbers that get millions a year and leave Raymond road still looking like a hellhole.

And the hard-working blacks run off to Rankin, Madison, and southern Hinds county as fast as they can. God bless the ones that get out of Jackson and God save the ones that are still in Jackson.

[Hawthorn]

> Not sure how the movie is but I can only imagine <

A guy that graduated from Murrah a couple of years ahead of Kathryn’s dad told me the other day that he’d seen the movie and that it was “not as bad” as the book.

I guess that’s what you’d call damning with faint praise!

[SuziQ]

I have read enough of the book to know it's just another "bad South" piece of tripe meant to make folks feel morally superior.

I didn't get that, at all, from the book. I'm certain there were some folks who DID treat their 'help' in a very snooty manner. And it's no stretch to believe that there were separate bathrooms for the 'help', considering there were separate public bathroom facilities for 'coloreds', in the South at the time.

I have no illusions about the South of my youth. I'm sure that there were many who looked down on their 'help', treating them badly, just as I'm sure there were many who treated them well. I was only 10 when the three civil rights workers were murdered, so I wasn't that aware, politically, of what was going on, since my family was not of the socioeconomic class that employed regular 'help'. I do remember my Mama hiring a young black woman to do some ironing for us, but that was only for a few weeks, after the birth of my youngest sister. I don't remember the young lady at all, since I was always in school, when she came, but I don't remember Mama ever saying anything about her not using our bathrooms. I can't imagine that Mama would have done that, since neither she, nor my Daddy, ever had that attitude about black people.

[Yudan]

My wife’s sister graduated form Prep with her (Stockett).

[vetvetdoug]

I saw the movie. We were poor sharecroppers until my Dad had to go back into the military to keep us from starving. I only saw the prejudice and snootiness depicted in the movie from the “upper crust” of the Southern society. The rest of us worked, ate, lived and played together. No black, no white...just us poor folks. I liked the movie and its message. I guess I related to the white woman that came from “Sugar Ditch” (Tunica?) and how the societal women treated her. It was filmed in Mississippi and it did show that many of us here in Mississippi were far above the racism that is so prevalent in the North and West. I can still see the remnants of the society women depicted living here in Corinth, they haven't changed their actions toward blacks, poor whites or those that move in from out of town.

[wardaddy]

I was in Jackson from 1960 to 1980. and here and there from 80-84 shared a house in Belhaven when in town..except for 4 years often in Oxford and some of 74-75 in Fairhope Al

My grandfather had money...self made contractor from Smith.. county ...Pineville..originally..his home is now the Reformed Seminary on Clinton Blvd..got lucky building military bases in buildup to WWII..all from a card game in Artesia NM...died young at 52 left big business with assets but no cash and loads of debt but enough of the material trappings left over for us to know we had it a bit different...I grew up about a mile from yudan behind Mynelle Gardens in what is now serious hood. His daddy was my LL coach. We moved north in 72 when the White Rock road projects were announced knowing that would kill us off...Northeast Jackson was a different world but my dad did not make real money till the 80s and after merging with an outfit in Nashville area and they moved up here while I was at Ole Miss...but I was around serious rich folks at Prep and Ole Miss. I don't get the take they were all snobs but some were...no question and I got a bit of that moving from Hardy Jr High to Prep....names anyone in Mississippi would know...but some of the very rich were actually less snotty. Snobbiness here in Nashville is less common...maybe a bit in Belle Meade...Nashville has more an elitism problem...ie libs. I prefer snobs actually to that anyhow.

My mom's folks were poor...Crackerneck...Smith County halfway tween Raleigh and Pulaski...near Burns on what is now called 481....one became a lawyer at night school and ended up pretty successful...most were blue collar.

My mom met dad at Clinton HS and it was all Disney from then on...her Miss Mississippi...him All American and etc etc

I am sorely disappointed in how Jackson has collapsed....it was sure not what anyone hoped and my dad's family were moderates...my grandfather had a paternal relationship with blacks and took many in...orphans even...gave them jobs and a place to stay and all that and promoted them as did my dad and endured the wrath of the klan and refused to join the WCC...

But they both were alarmed at how things went...from King to Civil Rights acts and then federal troops and then entitlement programs and so forth....views I now share....I was idealistic in my youth too. First time I witnessed unprovoked black hostility was in Manhattan in 1980...only to be surpassed by Yankee snottiness and indignation...which was worse...hard to say.

My beef with the Help is from the book and it sounds like the movie softened Stockett’s tongue a bit. All my cousins in Jackson area read it and were livid about how poorly it reflected on folks (like us) who grew up with old black women cooking and ironing or had black gardeners etc...my grandfather...not us though my mom did have “help”...just one lady...Violet Davis..and her husband Moses. I recall all their names...benevolent folks very kind to me...I can look back now and realize I was living in a fleeting time but unlike MS Stockett I have no guilt over it...though she actually is just writing about what she heard about.

So anyway...my rant.

For what it is worth...Metro Nashville at it's lower white strata is in piss poor shape culture wise...it is Godawful.

When I go home it seems like in Mississppi, it's not as bad. White thug kulture or "wiggers" ...there really is no better word..boys and girls are what folks once derisively called rednecks...they might have been 50 years ago from that same opportunity level but they have nothing in common ...no dignity whatsoever...like they have become feral and Nashville is eat up with it. I saw a wee bit in Pearl a few months ago but when we see it in Mississippi...we notice it...here it's the norm. Am I just paying attention in Jackson or my nostalgia getting the best of me?