I just got done watching Easy A with Emma Stone. It's about a girl who lets a little white lie about her sexual activity slip, which ultimately unravels her life. I won't give it a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down because I thought it was decent movie, but had a lot of undesirable language and content in it.
So if this isn't a movie review, what it is? It's a commentary on the portrayal of Christians in movies. In this movie, there was a group of Christians led by Amanda Bynes' character. Their primary part in this movie was to be the judge, jury, and executioner of Stone's character because of her alleged promiscuity. As I watched the movie, I got angry about how the Christians were portrayed. My first thought was that we Christians need to do a better job representing who we are so that the world will see the love of Christ in us. For years I have defended the media thinking that if we did a better job as Christians, we would be portrayed in a more favorable light.
However, as I thought about it more, I do now blame the media. I think about the Christians who have been portrayed in the media: Fred Phelps (the God Hates Fags guy - sorry about the term, but that's what his website is called and what he is about), Harold Camping (the guy who predicted the end of the world in May - the world looks pretty good, having ended and all), preachers who fail, etc. And then I reflect on the scores of Christians who are doing good things in the world: TOM's Shoes, the A21 Campaign, IJM, and the teenagers I had the privilege of hanging out with for a week serving the poor of Chicago. Where is their press? Why no news stories about them? While I certainly don't think we as Christians are doing a perfect job of representing who we are, I do think we are doing a much better job than the media would like you to believe. For some reason, the media likes to give us a one-sided view of the way Christians behave. Is it because there is some big media god out there pulling the puppet strings? Or because people in the media have been hurt by Christians? Or something else altogether? I don't have the answers; I just know it bugs me to see such a biased view.
What do you think? Why are Christians portrayed in such a manner? Comment and let me know...
3 comments:
We actually taught this movie in our high school group on Sunday. (Just showed some clips)
I think they took some stereotypes and blew them up. Ultimately, the movie isn't about how Christians are portrayed... it's how flippantly we destroy our reputations. Which, I think, ties right back into how Christians were portrayed in this movie.
We need a new identity in our communities. Because "too good for you" is just not going to cut it.
I don't know why Christians are portrayed like that. I just recently saw that movie as well and the way Christians were portrayed bothered me. Maybe it's what we do that bothers them. The way that we are open to serving the people that are outcastes in our society. That we are willing to love them the way that god loves them. Even if we are not perfect because we are human and people shouldn't hold us to standards that are unreachable. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to reach those standards. The best we can do is to continue loving the people that are our brothers and sisters and to never forget that they are human just like us. That everyone we pass on the streets,or the child at school, or the YMCA, even the person we just pass in our daily routine, is human but not only that but god as well. So I guess it doesn't really matter what the media thinks of us because that would never change but how we think about ourselves as Christians. That we don't just sit here and watch, but we do something about what bothers our hearts.
Adam, I agree with your point about the portrayal of Christians not being the main point of the movie. However, it was a pretty strong theme. And yes, they took some stereotypes and blew them up which is, at best, lazy and, at worst, an intentional attack on Christians. I'm not sure which it was for the producers, but I hope it was the former.
You are correct that we need a new identity, but my point was that we have many examples of Christians to have exemplified a new identity, only to have them ignored. Again, I hope it's because the media is simply lazy, but I'm not so sure any more...
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