I mentioned in a previous blog that there is a movie out there called Jesus People that people should go and see. A person reading that blog might have considered the suggestion strange considering the fact that I admitted that I hadn't seen the film yet. Well, I finally got to see it. The premise is about a pastor, Jerry Frank, who learns that he is dying from kidney disease. He also comes to the conclusion that his son is losing interest in Christianity. He bases this conclusion on the fact that his son enjoys rap music. Faced with his pending death, the pastor is driven to inspire his son to reconnect with Christ. He decides that creating a hip Christian music act is the way to reach his son. He finds four individuals for his band. His main target is Gloria Hamming. Gloria is a former CCM artist who fell out of favor with the Christian community due to her divorce. A second member comes from the pastor's church, Zak Crowner. Zak has very conservative beliefs. The third member is Cara Bosch, the current Miss Yucaipa. She has no Christian background, but the pastor decides he needs a hot blond in his band. The final member is Ty Raney. Ty is a Sunday School teacher who also works at Coldstones. He's also African-American. The pastor via some stereotyping concludes that Ty must know how to rap, providing the hip hop factor that will attract his son to the music.
If you can't already tell from the above description, let me say that this is an irreverent, satirical look at Christianity; therefore, if you are a Christian you need a sense of humor about Christianity to appreciate the movie. Though it isn't needed, it would also help having a basic understanding of Christian music. For example, one of the story lines in the movie is about how this band's hit song crosses over to the mainstream. By basic understanding of Christian music, I mean, it might be useful that you understand that a current band called Flyleaf is currently crossing over to the mainstream.
The humor does push the boundaries a tad. One of Gloria's previous hit songs was titled (not exact wording) "I love going down on my knees." If you have a slightly dirty mind, you get the double entendre in that one.
During much of the movie, folks in the audience were laughing. One young woman behind me was especially amused.
A Panel Discussion
There was an interesting panel discussion (not related to the movie) regarding Christianity and Hollywood. One individual on the panel was Barbara Nicolosi. She is a founding member of Act One Program. This is a non-profit program for Christians in Hollywood. She has a very direct personality. I suspect that those who go through her program are given a very honest assessment of their potential success in Hollywood. In her directness, she is also very opinionated. She argued that Christians who form Christian-only entertainment groups are doomed to mediocrity. In a previous blog, I mentioned a new Christian production company that is starting up called Cinema-Divina. By default, she provided a very harsh judgment of this venture. (Some of the people involved in Cinema-Divina were in the audience. I half wonder if she knew this fact and simply wanted to make her opinion known regarding this venture.) I would have liked to have followed up on her thought process regarding this, because she also made the following argument:
Her desire was for churches to once again be the standard of art -- like during the Renaissance Era (though she made sure we understood that she didn't feel we needed to return to the social, political and cultural mindset of those times -- just coop the concept.) She advocated setting up guilds that would guide Christian artists.
My question for her would be: Isn't there a disconnect between saying that Christian-only entertainment entities are by default mediocre and yet advocating for guilds being set up to encourage Christian artist? I suppose her argument would be that membership in a guild is meant to be temporary and that as soon as certain skill sets are developed those individuals are to venture out of the Christian-only circle.
There was one very uncomfortable moment during the discussion. Someone who looked like he was in high school asked a question about conformity to the world. One of the panelists jumped on him a bit harshly. I felt sorry for the kid.
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