Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Morality at the movies
Morality at the movies
Dec 23, 2024 6:19 AM

An article in today’s New York Times confirms the trend in Hollywood to make movies that are faith and family friendly. Sharon Waxman reports that

producers, directors, studio executives and marketing specialists have been looking to either mollify or entice an audience that made its power felt with last year’s “Passion of the Christ.” That film, directed by Mel Gibson, took in an astonishing $370 million at the domestic box office when released by Newmarket Films in February 2004 and – along with the empowerment of a Christian conservative bloc after the last presidential election – helped change attitudes and practices in an industry usually known for its secularism.

Rev. Sirico recently wrote mentary on this topic, referencing a newly released report by the Dove Foundation on the profitability of various ratings. The Dove study found that G-rated films are 11 times more profitable than R-rated features.

Here’s an illustration that when there is a market for morally upright products, the marketplace responds, despite whatever disagreements vendors may have with such morality. As Taylor Hackford, director of “Ray,” says, “It’s impossible for Hollywood not to reflect the nature of the country, and Bush has made his religion clear…. People in Hollywood aren’t stupid. It flies in the face of what I believe, but you’re still working in the movie industry, not the movie art form.” The purchasing power of moral consumers is where the real strength is in the marketplace.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
‘Defending the Free Market’ on C-SPAN
On C-Span2’s BookTV, Rev. Sirico talks about his new book, ‘Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy’, and argues that moral people should embrace capitalism and the free market. This talk was hosted by the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC.The next scheduled air times are Saturday, June 30th at 7pm ET and Sunday, July 1st at 6:15am ET. ...
Text of the Obamacare Ruling
For those wanting to read the recently released decision, the Alliance Defense Fund has a copy of the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. ...
Obamacare ruling ‘a turn to tyranny’
Fr. Hans JacobseOn the Observer blog (and picked up on Catholic Online), Antiochian Orthodox priest Fr. Hans Jacobse predicts that the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling will, “by the middle of the next generation” lead those who worked for this program — or ignored the threat — to be “cursed” by their own children. “The children will weep by the waters of Babylon, unearthing old movies and books of an America they never knew,” Jacobse writes. Antonio Gramsci, that great architect...
Samuel Gregg on the Supreme Court and the Individual Mandate
In response to the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare’a individual mandate, National Review Online launched a symposium — a roundup mentary — which posed the following question: “What’s next for both conservatives and the Republican party on health-care reform?” Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg contributed this analysis: Leaving aside the arguments that will continue about the SCOTUS ruling on Obamacare, one response of those who favor free markets and limited government must be for them to start preparing themselves for...
Growing Detroit
Renaissance Center (GM building). Creative Commons: paul (dex) bica via Compfight Some time back I argued that urban farming and the entrepreneurial spirit in Detroit was something that should be embraced rather than dismissed. Detroit mayor Dave Bing has given verbal support for urban munity farms in the past, but in many cases some regulatory hurdles remained and he was somewhat skeptical at times about the importance of large scale urban agriculture projects. But that ambivalence seems to be history,...
Initial Thoughts on the ‘Obamacare’ Decision
Obviously many people are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s ruling today. The decision was rather surprising for a number of legal and political reasons. Writing about the HHS mandate in an mentary in January, Dr. Donald P. Condit pointed to the moral threat that his health care legislation poses. Nothing has changed with today’s Supreme Court ruling. Condit wrote: With the passing of time, it has e painfully obvious how relativistic and clouded are this administration’s sense of ethics. The...
Vocation Infusion Learning Community
This week, 40 pastors and church leaders are gathered to discuss important ideas of integrating faith, work, and vocation into our daily lives. Vocation is integral, not incidental to the missio Dei, the work that God has called us to do each day. The pastors and church leaders represent a diversity of evangelical traditions and geographic locations in the US. Over the next year, this group will meet for face-to-face retreats, field trips and a few webinars with the goal...
Lessons in Liberty from a Little House on the Prairie
We could learn a lot about liberty from our pioneer forebears, argues Meghan Clyne. And an exemplar of this model of freedom and self-reliance can be found on our children’s bookshelves, in the Little House books of Laura Ingalls Wilder: Who in America’s past, then, can show us the way to a mature, sustainable democratic life — one defined not by the rebellious seizure of liberty, but by the consistent and wise exercise of it through a dedication to self-reliance?...
Two reviews of ‘Defending the Free Market’
Father Peter Preble, pastor of St. Michael Orthodox Church, and Stephen Kokx, adjunct professor of political science and columnist, both recently reviewed Rev. Robert Sirico’s new book Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. Fr. Preble says the book changed his outlook on how to treat the poor. He refers to the third chapter and highlights the book’s emphasis on asking new questions: The most striking of the chapters has to be chapter three, Want to...
Rev. Robert Sirico: Reply to America Magazine
Anytime I can get a progressive/dissenting Catholic magazine/blog like the Jesuit-run America simultaneously to quote papal documents, defend the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, embrace the Natural Law and even yearn for a theological investigation “by those charged with oversight for the Church’s doctrine” of a writer suspected of heresy, I consider that I have had a good day. And to think that all this was prompted by two sentences of mine quoted in a New York Times story on...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved