Unpop Culture

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that much of the pushback I received on my critique of the film Redeeming Love is based on statements I didn’t actually make and positions I don’t actually hold. As such, much of the disagreement publicly shared is unfounded. The bad news, of course, is that such a high level of reader misinterpretation happened in the first place. A lot of digital ink has been spilt arguing with rhetorical phantoms. While I am saddened that so many people walked away from my piece unnecessarily confused, I am also glad to clear the air and clarify my intentions. Toward that end, I wish to address several misconceptions. One key factor is the title of the article itself. In the beginning, my working title was Redeeming Love’s Unfortunate Exploitation . By using the word “unfortunate,” I hoped to communicate a sympathetic posture toward the film and its intentions. Of course, the final title is different from my initial suggestion: ‘Redeeming Love’...

If you haven’t watched any of the Pitch Meeting comedy videos by Ryan George , you’re missing out. In each video, George pokes fun at a given movie’s plot holes and logical inconsistencies, framed by an imaginary discussion between a film producer and a screenwriter. (He plays the parts of both individuals, cutting the footage together so that his characters are talking to each other.) The screenwriter pitches a story idea while the producer interjects with various questions and comments. The results are often hilarious. For a stellar example of this setup, you can watch the pitch meeting for Watchmen  in the embedded video at the end of this post. In the spirit of Ryan George’s videos, I have written a pitch meeting for the faith-based film Redeeming Love . As such, the discussion below is an imaginary conversation between a Hip and Edgy Christian Screenwriter (HECS) and a Priggish, Obtuse Producer Crazy about Oscars, Ratings, and Notoriety (POPCORN). Enjoy! ----------------...

“The truth does not matter. There is only the power of men.” These words come from The Last Duel , Ridley Scott’s historical drama about the last sanctioned trial-by-combat in medieval France . This particular movie has been on my radar for a while, as it touches on topics I have spent years researching and writing about. My friend Jonathan Broxton describes the focus of the film thus: “the powerlessness, lack of agency, and mis-treatment [sic] of women throughout time.” The story, he says, helps us see “how comparatively little has changed over the course of the past several centuries in terms of how sexual assault is viewed differently by men and women.” As such, I am grateful for the opportunity for collective introspection provided by big-screen treatments of this subject. In spite of my excitement over The Last Duel , however, there is a problem. Two problems, actually. In attempting to address the debasement of women in society, the movie inadvertently debases its actresses....

Whenever an actor shares the shame and humiliation of being bullied into undressing or sexually acting out for the camera, there are a plethora of responses from armchair critics. Since I write about this topic often, I’ve seen a lot of these responses, many of which can often lean toward the shame-based end of the spectrum : “It’s her fault for not telling the director ‘no.’” “What did she expect, working with a bunch of perverts?” “She’s complaining now, but did she complain about the paycheck she received?” “If you don’t like the mud don’t roll around with the pigs!” For consumers far removed from the goings on of a film set, it’s easy to simplify matters so as to lay the blame at the actress’ feet, as if the most appropriate summation is, “She shouldn’t have done that.” The reality, however, is more complex, and Scripture can help us better navigate this complexity. Consider for example the story of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar (see Genesis 38). Childless, and after the lo...

After two decades in Hollywood, actress Salma Hayek did an interview with The Orange County Register . She was asked if she realized being a sex symbol was the only way to open doors in the entertainment industry, or if she “found out later and had to accept.” She answered, “I did not know that in advance, but I saw that it was the only way to sneak in.” [1] When she moved from Mexico to Los Angeles back in 1991, the only way for her to “sneak in” was through the use of her body as a bargaining chip. She discovered Latino actresses like her were “typecast as the mistress maid or local prostitute.” Being viewed primarily as a sexual object didn’t just last for a brief stint. It lasted for years. In 1995, Hayek got a big break as a lead actor in Desperado , but this career advancement came at a high cost: having a sex scene sprung on her. Says Hayek , “[The scene] was not in the original script, I have to say. I think it was one of the notes that came after they showed the screen test...