Articles
Hey Hollywood, Your Slip Is Showing
Those who have known me throughout my preaching career will attest that my biggest soap box issue has been, in a word, Hollywood. I plead guilty as charged, and I remain unapologetic about it.
“Hollywood” is shorthand for the entertainment industry: movie makers, television programming and popular music. My occasional anti-Hollywood rants have not been merely to provide cultural commentary but to warn against the eager, if perhaps naive, guzzling of the carnal sewage by many Christians. I have exposed the moral bankruptcy of the writers and actors; the desensitizing effects of exposure to violence, profanity and fornication; the hedonistic and atheistic agenda preached in scripts and lyrics. In spite of this I have seen brethren keep redrawing the line of what they are willing to tolerate. The love affair with Hollywood continues.
For decades Hollywood has mounted an assault on everything Christians hold dear. Some movies, like The Last Temptation of Christ, were overt blasphemy. Religious people are almost always portrayed as simpletons, hypocrites and/or crazed lunatics. Marriage, the family and sexual abstinence have been ridiculed. Fornication, homosexuality and now transgenderism have been championed, and pedophiles like Roman Polansky and Woody Allen have been celebrated. The abuse of alcohol and drugs has been glorified onscreen and in the personal lives of performers.
Further, dysfunctional celebrities are idolized, invited to testify on Capitol Hill, mindlessly interviewed on talk shows and empowered and enriched to spew more of their poison by fawning fans who lap up their every CD or DVD. And worse, they have become role models who have helped drag our culture into the mire of godlessness. They have glorified abortion, feminism, nudity, divorce, moral relativism and self-indulgence. Many are enamored with their degenerate fantasies because their mundane lives are devoid of true meaning. Hollywood provides a vicarious thrill.
These arrogant elitists have sneered at Christians, pontificated about sexual liberty and flaunted promiscuity, and now we find out it was all a hypocritical sham. Not only has Harvey Weinstein been exposed as a lecherous slug, not only are other executives and artists being outed, but now that the piling on has begun industry insiders now admit they knew this all along but didn’t say anything. In their own judgmental zeal they castigated anyone who dared challenge their wretched liberal script, yet all the while they were protecting their little fiefdom by remaining silent about abuse that we are now learning was an “open secret.”
Against this abysmal backdrop of flagrant godlessness stands the admonition of Paul: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, what-ever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things” (Ph 4:8). True, noble, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtue, praiseworthy … does this describe television comedy/drama, talk shows, movies and music produced by Hollywood? The answer is no, for these people produce programming from their own worldview and experience. Their product is what they are. “You will know them by their fruits.”
"In the final analysis I worry over the impact of media messages not only on my children but on myself … No matter how sophisticated we believe we are, or how determined … to counteract their influence, the poisons of the popular culture seep into our very souls” (Michael Medved, Hollywood vs. America, 344). Toto has pulled the curtain back and has exposed the vile underbelly of Hollywood. Will we finally see it for what it is? I predict it will all be forgotten in the next news cycle.
