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Real Answers™
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Copyright: © 2006 Tom Flannery
700 words

HOLLYWOOD — BACK TO THE FUTURE

By: Tom Flannery

There they go again.

Hollywood, that is.

From the late 1960s, when such counter-culture classics as "Easy Rider" and "Bonnie and Clyde" ushered in a "new wave" of filmmaking, Hollywood has given us a steadily increasing number of movies more preoccupied with sending radical political and social messages than merely entertaining the masses.

The New Wave filmmakers, from hardline leftists like Warren Beatty to drug-dazed hippies like Dennis Hopper, rejected the traditional values of their predecessors in the industry and embraced moral relativism. Consequently, to an alarming degree, situational ethics replaced eternal truth on the big screen.

Whereas heroes of earlier days were characters of strength and integrity portrayed by stars like John Wayne and James Stewart, the modern hero was perhaps best reflected in the person of Travis Bickle, the character DeNiro plays in "Taxi Driver." At one point in the film, he is on the verge of assassinating a politician for no particular reason, but then he turns his fury instead upon a pimp and his gang of thugs, saving an underage girl and becoming a hero.

The message was that even those whom we celebrate as heroes could just as easily be deranged killers. No good or evil, no right or wrong, just the outcomes of frighteningly random acts — social Darwinism, in effect.

And it just keeps getting worse.

Consider this current batch of Oscar honorees, arguably the most anti-religious, anti-American and non-traditional of any year in motion picture history. There are the now-standard pro-"gay" and transgender tracts ("Brokeback Mountain," "Transamerica," and "Capote"), the moral equivalence of films that depict terrorists in a positive light ("Munich," "Syriana," and the documentary "Paradise Now"), and historical revisionism masked as straight news reporting in "Good Night, and Good Luck" to once again attack the anti-communist movement of the 1950s as delusional and dangerous, among other disturbing offerings.

The industry elites are celebrating this crop of "socially-conscious" films as something of a motion picture renaissance, a return to what they view as the glories of the New Wave era of the late '60s/early '70s, but audiences have had a decidedly different reaction. The combined box-office grosses of this year's five Best Picture nominees are the lowest for any group of nominated films in 20 years, and overall box-office receipts dropped by about six percent in 2005 — something that was a major story in the industry trade papers and the national media.

At the same time, good news abounds.

For starters, there's a change taking place within the industry itself, with outspoken Christians like Stephen Baldwin and Kirk Cameron committing themselves to producing Bible-based or family-friendly entertainment. Then there are major stars like Mel Gibson with "The Passion of the Christ" and Robert Duvall with "The Apostle" who put up millions of dollars of their own money to finance these faith-based labors of love when all of Hollywood's power players turned them down cold. The Bible tells us to let our lives so shine before men that all people will see and glorify God, and today there are more leading lights in Hollywood devoted to doing just that.

Secondly, moviegoers themselves are voting with their feet, and their pocketbooks. Ted Baehr of MovieGuide, an organization which rates movies according to how family-oriented and biblically-correct (as opposed to politically-correct) they are, has been tracking the industry for years — and his research shows an unmistakable trend.

"Every year, our financial analysis proves that good guys always finish first," he relates. "Movies with Judeo-Christian values and heroic virtues always do better at the box-office."

In addition to these positive signs, we have film festivals sprouting up which celebrate traditionally-themed movies and documentaries, as well as Christian ventures into the marketplace by Trinity Broadcasting Network and others (resulting in the "Omega Code" movies, "Left Behind" series, etc.).

For the first time in a long time, there's a lot to be excited about in Hollywood.

The New Wave filmmakers, who now make up the entrenched Old Guard, are hanging on to power for dear life, but the pendulum is swinging against them. It may only be a matter of time before we'll again be able to say, with the utmost enthusiasm, "Hooray for Hollywood!"

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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