In 2004, Hollywood moguls slammed The Passion of the Christ for its excessive violence while the industry spent decades cashing-in on blood baths like Halloween, Hellraiser, and the psychopathic-comedy A Nightmare on Elm Street. Hollywood’s denouncement of the film’s graphic content was a sleight of hand to cover up the success of an A-list actor who broke the 30 year old moratorium on religious-driven stories; a silence allegedly due to the unprofitability of religious films.
Mel Gibson’s instincts were vindicated when he turned $25 million into a profitable movie drawing in excess of $370 million domestically ($611M worldwide). Leonardo Defilippis, director of the film Thérèse, credited The Passion of the Christ as “opening the doors for all kinds of religious projects.” Unfortunately, studios like Paramount Pictures never came knocking. Quite the contrary, movies attacking Christianity continued to be greenlit (e.g. The DaVinci Code, The Golden Compass) in Tinseltown, while religious-themed cinema began to enjoy overseas success.
At the time of The Passion’s debut two further “missed” opportunities may be pointed out, both of which are unusual and suspect.
When The Passion was theatrically released, the movie industry demonstrated poor (or perhaps selective) business sense. Capitalizing on successful predecessors–as quickly as possible–is a time honored tradition in Hollywood. The financial powerhouses-that-be produce knock-offs on the cheap, and what starts as modest investments turn into perpetual home theatre profit. For example, films featuring Native Americans followed the success of Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves. Silver screen remakes of old television shows blitzed after the success of The Addams Family. In many ways, insignificant copycats fuel the industry’s more ambitious productions, and sequels like the upcoming The Hobbit fill the pages of trade magazines with buzz. Not so with the $611 million dollar earning Passion play.
The second “missed” financial opportunity was the failure to reissue classic, religious-themed DVDs, previously only available on VHS, to coincide with the film’s premiere (e.g. El Cid, Quo Vadis, David and Bathsheba, etc.). It is typical for competing studios to scour their inventory for related material and capitalize on the premiere of a hot ticket. For example, when the remake “Red Dragon” starring Edward Norton was theatrically released, distribution company Anchor Bay reissued the original, Michael Mann’s Manhunter, on DVD. Again, not so for The Passion.
So why would the movie industry shut out a Hollywood “rainmaker,” and divest from proven and profitable business practices? Is it indicative of the gulf perpetuated by Hollywood between itself and the deeply held beliefs of middle-of-the-road Americans, or does the industry perceive itself as representing mainstream values and ideas? “Doors for all kinds of religious projects” should have opened. But they didn’t. Hollywood continues to churn out countercultural films which fail to edify or illuminate, and instead degrade and corrupt.
Artistic Freedom and Decency
The film industry describes itself as a business when it is convenient to hide behind the corporation and when not, the business hides under the immunity of artistic freedom. But it wasn’t always this way.
In 1915 the United States Supreme Court ruled that motion pictures were a business not covered by the First Amendment. Following several scandals during the industry’s infancy, public outcry led to the creation of city and state censorship boards. Fearing even greater censorship, the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (now MPAA) was established as a trade lobby to stop federal government intervention and police its own ranks. As with any organization which dismisses some degree of regulation, MPAA’s self-imposed censorship diminished and the association refocused its efforts on the industry’s lobbying and business interests.
Perhaps it is time Catholics have a serious conversation about the elephant in the room: “artistic freedom.” Censorship is an unappealing subject to modern man yet we cannot speak of the ills of economic license and give a free pass to deregulated art, especially when public assistance is used to fund it. Decency standards must not simply be left to market forces any more than the economy should, particularly as art increasingly contributes to the moral development of the household and the community. As Archbishop Giovanni Cicognani accurately predicted in the 1930s, motion pictures pose a menace to morals and “massacre the innocence of youth.”
Thus, while continuing to produce our own films, the first step towards restructuring the movie industry is to resurrect the National Legion of Decency. This Christian organization successfully opposed and actively protested against immoral content. The powerful rise of the Legion caused fear among the trade papers. In 1934, the trade paper Variety published a warning under the headline,
“CATHOLICS WOULD ENLIST ALL FAITHS—Need for Prompt Action to Avert Drastic Penalties Upon Picture Industry Urged in East—Real Danger—”
And they did recruit all faiths. According to a Jun 11, 1934 article for Time Magazine, “Aiming at enlisting at least half the U. S. Catholic population of 20,000,000 as well as all Protestants and Jews who care to sign, the Legion last week claimed 2,000,000 members.”
Imagine a number like that one in just one week.
What we need today is an aggressive and unified censor, backed by strong Catholic leadership that will impress upon the faithful a need for abstinence from art that is detrimental to the soul. Local Legion chapters could be formed as vehicles of information for the parish, the priest’s homily, and especially for parents. These chapters can also help in organizing protests, not only to boycott movies and defend the family, but as visible manifestations of faith, inspiring new leadership just as the pro-life movement successfully has.
Finally, we should remember the work of Father Daniel A. Lord, who was the father of Hollywood’s old Production Code, and whose resume included a stint as technical advisor on Louis B. DeMille’s 1927 silent film, “King of Kings.” Fr. Lord stood defiantly against Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle and Columbia Pictures’ co-owner Harry Cohen, calling them out for their, “…contempt for public opinion and disregard for the high trust the nation placed in them in permitting them to supply it with entertainment.”
With our Heavenly King in our hearts, let us recall the original (1933) Legion of Decency membership pledge, composed by Archbishop John McNicholas:
I wish to join the Legion of Decency, which condemns vile and unwholesome moving pictures. I unite with all who protest against them as a grave menace to youth, to home life, to country and to religion. I condemn absolutely those salacious motion pictures which, with other degrading agencies, are corrupting public morals and promoting a sex mania in our land…Considering these evils, I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality.
Excellent article, Richard, on a subject that will elicit some knee-jerk controversy.
What we also need are film reviewers who are intelligent enough to assess what they watch. For example, on the one hand we have the USCCB whose reviews are entirely secular and utterly inane and not written from a Catholic or even a nomnally Christian perspective; on the other hand we have the reveiwers from the Focus on the Family website who count the number of times “damn” might be used in a picture, overlooking context and not seeing the forest for the trees.
Many Puritans confuse the depiction of sin with the endorsement of sin. This is why if EWTN ever dramatized the Old Testament, they’d be flooded with viewer complaints. What the Puritans don’t understand is that drama can depict sin and show its evil consequences without endorsing sin; but it takes a kind of sensitivity to things to get this. For example, there’s a good deal of foul language and a depiciton of breaking rules in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, but the overall message of the film is one that affirms the spirit and attacks the closed-hearted materialism that Our Lord condemned.
But this is hard for most reactionaries to grasp.
And so we’re caught between a rock and a soft place – Puritans and hedonists. For example, there’s a Christian film festival that insists that none of the movies submitted include any kissing – any kissing! And yet turn on your TV and you’ll see the opposite extreme.
In this insane age we have no truly Catholic balance, no real ability to appreciate and assess the value of art. And so censorship, itself a necessity, is cut off from culture of sanity that should ground it and inform it.
“What we also need are film reviewers who are intelligent enough to assess what they watch. For example, on the one hand we have the USCCB whose reviews are entirely secular and utterly inane and not written from a Catholic or even a nomnally Christian perspective; on the other hand we have the reveiwers from the Focus on the Family website who count the number of times “damn” might be used in a picture, overlooking context and not seeing the forest for the trees.”
Right you are Kevin!
Part of defining what a new (or old, depending how one sees it) Catholic art culture should look like, will be the task of great orthodox thespians such as yourself. Under the right leadership and with the proper distinctions (as you have elegantly made), we may march in this direction.
You are also correct that this age is insane. As a former Marine (or once and always) I believe the bleakest of times serves to increase our faith and rise in courage. Now is the time for all of us to take our stand. While liberalism destroys, we will build.
Servire Deo regnare est!