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War Room

Story Still Matters: Race, Film, & the Oscar Nominees

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straightouttaI’m a reluctant writer.  It’s a gift.  It’s a curse.  It’s a gift because God has given me the voice to express myself.  It’s a curse because of the toll it takes and the burden I have to carry.  Your fearless leader Jacob has been nudging me to write film commentary like we used to do at Hollywood Jesus.  The gift kept calling.  The curse kept weighing on me.  So I ducked and dodged him.

And then the Oscar nominations came.  

There was one nomination for the white screenwriters of Straight Outta Compton.  One nomination for the white superstar supporting actor in Creed.  Zero/nada/zip for Beasts of No Nation, Chi-Raq and the other African American centric films/actors/etc.  The question of diversity within the Motion Picture Academy is now on the table.  Blacks across America are furious.  Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee are calling for a boycott.

I can feel most of you sharpening your knives because you think you know what I’m going to say.  Allow me to disappoint you.

Sorry, Jada.  Nothing but love for you, Spike.  But I won’t be boycotting anything. I will spend my Oscar night in front of the TV like I do every year cheering the winners I loved and booing the winners I didn’t want to win.

creed-movieAnd while I’m being honest…here’s more of my $0.02 regarding the lack of diversity in this year’s nominees.

  • Creed was good…but it was nothing more than Rocky 7. The notion that Sly Stallone is nominated  for playing Rocky is a joke to me…but, hey…strokes for folks.
  • A note to filmmakers: if you’re using Netflix to launch your movie in the Oscar race, you’re a TV movie. Beasts Of No Nation getting snubbed is not a statement against Black actors. It’s a statement against a TV distribution system that  is attempting to destroy the motion picture theatrical experience. The video on demand industry is dedicated to shrinking theatrical release windows to the point of non-existence.  Within the next few years, movie theaters will be few and far between due to the fact that everyone can watch movies on their tiny smartphones.  I still love going to the movies.  Nothing beats sitting in the theatre with popcorn in hand and watching a story be told on a sixty-five-foot (NOT INCH!) screen.  Cry all you want about Idris Elba getting snubbed, but I’m doggone proud that the Academy chose to preserve my favorite national pastime!
  • Had Universal received the memo that Steve Jobs wasn’t playing to audiences and the guilds like it had hoped – and repurposed their 2015 awards campaign to ride behind Straight Outta Compton as they should have, Spike wouldn’t be boycotting and Jada wouldn’t be ranting. Harvey Weinstein does the same thing every year, which is why his films bag a gazillion nominations and wins year after year. Don’t blame the Academy. Blame Universal for betting on the wrong horse.

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  • And, as much as I loved Chi-Raq…and as much as I admire your body of work, Mr. Lee, you can’t call a major Hollywood studio a “plantation” and not expect any fallout or blacklisting. Yep.  Back in 1992, out of his frustration with completing his classic biography of Malcom X, Spike Lee called the film’s distributor Warner Bros. those very words.  Twenty-something years later, he’s expressed in news outlets his difficulties in getting the major studios to finance his projects.  I wonder why.  Yeah, we have freedom of speech, but that freedom ain’t necessarily free.  God Himself through the inspiration of Scripture reminds us to be wise, slow to speak and, by all means, watch that flaming inferno called The Tongue.  Unfortunately, many have not heeded this warning – Mr. Lee included.   Speak your mind…but be willing to pay the price!
  • As I shared my thoughts on my Facebook page, I undoubtedly received my fair share of dissention – particularly from an old buddy from my old South Central LA neighborhood.  This particular gentleman called me a sellout because I wanted to see films that were off the beaten path.  I will never forget how he read me the (uncensored) riot act because I wanted to see the U2 documentary Rattle & Hum in the 80’s.  Dude lost his mind back then…and lost his mind again today as I took my anti-boycott stance.  He’s not the only one who gave me grief in  our “hood.” I got ridiculed for saying that Clint Eastwood was a better actor than Eddie Murphy.  My constant pleas to see a movie at the larger than life Hollywood movie theatres were ignored.  While everyone else was living the 70MM life, I used to take the bus to a piece of crap three-screen shoebox across the street from USC’s campus. Once I got a driver’s license, I made my way to Hollywood Boulevard and haven’t looked back in thirty years! I still march to the beat of my own drum.  I don’t explore EVERY film that’s off the beaten path, but I take pride in the fact that I will have seen every one of this year’s Best Picture nominees.  I will not allow my old pal, or anyone else, to use my color or race to define who I am as a person. The fruit of my life transcends my color. I am a child of God and a lover of cinema FIRST!  That’s never gonna change.

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  • Lastly…there’s one way to fix the diversity problem at the Oscars: make a film SO DOGGONE GOOD that the industry can’t take their eyes off of it. Make a work of cinema so decadent and impactful that it simply will not be denied. Steve McQueen did in 2013. The result: 12 Years A Slave. Winner of Best Picture…and many Black folks refuse to even watch it because we won’t grieve the pain and scars of slavery. In order to heal, we must go back to the pain and discover that, in spite of what we went through, we must first realize that we WENT THROUGH – and SURVIVED. Props to the writers/directors/actors taking number one spots from Star Wars. But I’d rather see Sam and Denzel taking shots at each other as opposing attorneys in a courtroom judged by James Earl Jones than Cube and Kevin Hart shucking and jiving across the streets of Miami!

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  • That same sentiment goes to the world of Christian film, too.  I have ZERO INTEREST in the US vs. THEM mentality set forth by stories like God’s Not Dead.  The success of War Room was based on the fact that the story was centered in actual reality.  Like 12 Years A Slave, War Room was so doggone good that it would not be denied.  Let’s see more stories like that!  Yes, we as Christ followers stand for what is right in pure in the eyes of God.  But we need to see more gritty and real stories of transformation through His power.  Let’s see the story where the lead starts out as a foul mouthed, train-wrecked mess of a man and, two hours later, we see the spirit of God upend his life and transform his soul. Let’s see the story about the sister who uses sex to gain acceptance from the world only to discover that, through Christ’s love, she has the acceptance that she longs for.  And please don’t make it PG rated.  That’s not real.  

We live in an R-rated world (X…if we wanna be truly honest).  Are we too proud to take the Apostle Paul’s example of becoming all things to all men in order to save some?  Or are we too concerned about our image?  I don’t know about you, but my journey with God has been decidedly R-rated.  I was the foul-mouthed trainwreck.  I was the one who used sex to gain acceptance from the world.  But His love continues to transform me.  My story of redemption is not pretty…but I know He has taken my ashes and made them beautiful.  Can we get more stories like that on screen instead of incessant preaching to the choir? God doesn’t need us to create sanitized classroom scenarios to prove that He’s not dead.  The harvest is in the muck and mire of the world.  And that harvest is sho-nuff ripe.  But the laborers are few.  Hopefully, in this artform that I love, that will one day change for the better.

Editor’s note: Chris Utley is a forty-something writer, director, (sometime) actor, songwriter, singer (only at church!), husband, and father to three beautiful children. Hailing from Los Angeles, he shares his love for film and Jesus Christ with everyone he can. 

The Reasons Christian Films Don’t Get The Traction They Could

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An empty theater A few weeks ago, I saw a picture of a friend from college on my Facebook feed that caused me to do a double-take.  She was on the red carpet for a screening of the Kendrick Brothers’ latest film War Room.  I was curious to know what she thought of the film since it was coming out the following week, so I asked.  Her reaction was one of joy, excitement, and a desire for people of faith to see the film—all totally expected.

I have to admit that I’ve been surprised that War Room has done well at the box office despite the abundance of negative reviews in the mainstream media; it even finished first nationally one weekend when there was very little competition from other films! It would seem that a nerve has been tapped and people are going to the theaters to see it in droves (note: I haven’t seen the film yet, but hope to soon).

That led me to wonder a number of things:

Is ‘preaching to the choir’ an effective method for getting out specific Gospel-related messages in film these days?

Have Christian-based films hit a wall?

Do Christians put their minds in neutral during films and choose not to look at them in broader scope and context?

Have directors effectively made Christian-based films irrelevant by catering only to one segment of society and eschewing the rest?

Can more be expected with Christian-based films regarding Hollywood, the actors/actresses, the screenwriters, and the directors?

Can things be better?

Movie ticketsDollars and cents matter.  In the world of Hollywood, a film has to perform well enough to both justify its budget and make a profit for the studio.  We’ve all heard of massive, box office flops like Waterworld ($175 million to make but only $88 million in sales).  The question is whether recent films like War Room, God’s Not Dead, and others fare the same way in the eyes of moviegoers. The answer is no, according to stats taken from boxofficemojo.com:

  • Son of God – ($22 million budget; $59.7 million made)
  • Courageous – ($2 million budget; $34.5 million made)
  • God’s Not Dead – ($2 million budget; $60.7 million made)
  • War Room – ($3 million budget; $49.1 million made–so far)

So Christian-based films can make significant profits in the cinema. But where is the money coming from? The answer seems to be exclusively from other Christians. The films noted above are quite evangelical in nature, meaning that they share the Gospel of Jesus in a way the viewer can recognize and potentially respond to. Christians tend to see these movies as real-life sermons they can relate to on a personal level and increase sales by encouraging friends to see the film (and perhaps seeing it again for themselves).  It’s not too often that the mainstream crowd finds their way into these viewings unless invited by a Christian.  This seems to be a design of the film’s directors.

While I was on the red carpet for the film Do You Believe? back in February, I found it interesting that Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino mentioned that the film was really catering to the Christian crowd. It played exactly like that in the screening, only with A and B-list actors and actresses performing.

To pigeonhole a film for a specific crowd presents two distinct problems. The first issue is that a film geared to Christians limits to a very large degree who will potentially be interested in seeing it. Obviously, Christians will take a look and perhaps convince friends to see it as well. The mainstream crowd won’t find their way into the theater unless they entered the wrong room with their popcorn and soda.  If the film doesn’t meet the entertainment/teaching value of the viewer, they won’t tell others and sales will dwindle to the point where the film is removed from the theater for good.

The second ancillary issue is that by focusing on Christians only, a studio effectively caps the amount of money the film can make.  After all, the Christian populace is a certain size and can only provide so much revenue to the picture.  According to Box Office Mojo, there have been only five (5) Christian-based films since 1980 to break the $65 million barrier for revenue—The Passion of the Christ (obviously), all three Chronicles of Narnia films, and Heaven is For Real.  Only twenty-two flicks in that time frame have made more than $10 million.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be.  When a limited audience exists, so does a theoretical financial cap.  And when the film doesn’t reach the expectation of the viewers, those potential earnings lessen significantly.  Focusing on one group and their issues—using their terminology and mannerisms—threatens to make films in that genre irrelevant to the general populace and further lessen their effectiveness.  Of course, God can use anything to bring a person to Him—even films many have decried as sappy, ham-handed, unrealistic, and full of wooden acting/dialogue. If it brings about just one conversion, many Christians will say that the movie has done its job.

But can’t we do better that that?

People watching a filmThe answer for some directors is to create films that have a faith edge to them but are grittier in nature.  They’re not as straightforward but require the viewer to do some thinking and reflection.  In addition, they have elements that are geared for people in the mainstream to latch onto. It kinda goes with the famous quote from poet Emily Dickinson: “Tell all the truth/But tell it slant.”

Films like Where the Game Stands Tall, Where Hope Grows, The Song, and (most recently) Captive are harbingers of what could be a gamechanger in Christian-based filmmaking. So far, these films haven’t gained enough traction to pass that elusive $65 million barrier, but they may sooner than later.  In a recent interview with The Atlantic, Golden Globe-nominated actor and director David Oyelowo stated, “If the film only appeals to Christians, then to me, personally, the film has failed . . . I’m not interested in a film that suffers from myopia because it only appeals to a certain subset of society.”

Of course, the other answer is to be better at the act of filmmaking in general. Christians are commanded to do all things with excellence—including media, an area where they often seem hopelessly behind general society. Simply put, the cinematography has to be well-choreographed, the writing crisp and insightful, the acting passionate and convincing.

As far as the audience goes, I’m reminded of my friend’s comments about War Room—and the hundreds I’ve seen since then, all unabashedly praising the film. If the only negative comments come from the media, then something’s the matter, as there’s usually a mix of positive and negative with all films (including well-received films like E.T., Inside Out, and Schindler’s List).  It makes me think that Christians tend to disengage their minds at the cinemas and instead let films wash over them like a sermon on Sunday morning (with the added fact that they have to pay for the privilege of viewing it).

Simply put, we can’t do that! Keeping the mind focused on how a film relates to society in meaningful ways and can be used to challenge and encourage others should be a hallmark of Christian viewing habits.  If a film isn’t any good, we need to be ready to admit as much. If things can be better, we have to speak up. And the directors, actors, and screenwriters have to be open to the feedback and make changes accordingly in order to reach the most people in the most effective way. Otherwise, we’ll continue with another generation of Christian-based films that only reach Christians and are just profitable enough to continue the cycle all over again.

Being insular was never the plan of Jesus—He talked to everyone and invited everyone to be a part of the Kingdom—no matter who they were or what their backgrounds brought to the table.

We can do no less.