Wednesday, February 27, 2008

In Search of that Elusive Christian Character

I've just had the good fortune to read a rather angry post about the way in which Hollywood allegedly misrepresents Christianity, particularly in the way that they cast their characters. While I'm sure that there will always be stereotypes of Christians just as there are stereotypes of everyone else, it seems to me like Hollywood is a bit of a hiding to nothing here. Create a Christian character that isn't nasty enough and you'll have Calvinists baying for blood because the character was "too liberal". Create a Christian character who is nasty, and the same Calvinists will be spewing vitriol about being demonised and caricatured. It kind of reminds me of the situation in which a person listens to a recording of their own voice and says "That can't be me!" There's nothing quite so confronting as looking into a mirror.

Remember that movies only have two hours to present a character, so it's nearly always the case that characters will not be developed as fully as the director may like. I mean, it's not like a character is going to have a chance to read out Calvin's "Institutes" during the course of the movie, would they? I might add that even then, some Calvinists may complain that the character did not read with enough enthusiam. With that in mind, I'd be really interested in knowing whether there are any people who can point to a Christian they perceive as being properly represented from secular literature. It seems to me at the moment people are demanding a "square-circle" and are angry when they aren't produced with one.

1 comment:

david santos said...

Hello, David!
Thanks for your posting.