Better Than Boycotting: An Alternative Approach to Christians and Bad Movies

Every one or two years Hollywood produces a movie so morally objectionable that Christians publicly and passionately protest its existence. The favorite and most obvious way of opposing such films is boycotting them. But is that the best method?

Is Boycotting Best?

A recently released movie (that I agree Christians are ill-advised to see, so I won’t name it) has caused a blizzard of blog posts and social media campaigns. In various ways the message is, “This movie overtly opposes biblical morality and sexual ethics, so don’t see it.” The irony, of course, is that [inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]telling people not to see a movie only increases its visibility. Even more troublesome, boycotting doesn’t really work.[/inlinetweet]

These situations pull up memories in one of Andy Crouch’s books called Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. “Culture is what we make of the world,” says Mr. Crouch. Culture is a lasagna, a painting, a table, a song. It’s all of those things. Culture is human beings taking the raw materials of nature and doing something with them. Movies, too, are culture.

What do Christians do about a movie so skewed that hardly any case can be made to see it? We want to tell people to avoid it. We want these movies never to be made. But often what is most unbiblical is most marketable. The situation seems hopeless. Yet we still try. At the very least we should call for all Christians to boycott the movie and send Hollywood a message. But boycotting movies doesn’t really work.

Reason #1: Boycotting a Movie Hardly Affects the Bottom Line

In his book on culture, Andy Crouch describes a scenario in which Christians have called for a boycott of the movie, The DaVinci Code (2006). For various reasons the movie undermines biblical and historic, orthodox Christian beliefs. So Christians should not give the production company their money. They should boycott it. Better yet, Christians should “othercott” the movie. Crouch cites Christian screenwriter, Barbara Nicolosi, who says, “You should go to the movies. Just go to another one. That’s your way of casting your vote.” Don’t stay home, she says. Go out to the movies. But instead see another, more Christian-friendly, movie.

Yet even if a boycott or othercott was wildly successful (and they usually aren’t) it would hardly make a dent in a movie’s earnings. Crouch analyzes the effects of a widespread othercott on The DaVinci Code and concludes, “A stunningly enthusiastic response to Nicolosi’s call to alternative consumption would have produced an effect of 0.9 percent on the opening weekend of two major feature films.” While dollars are votes in a consumer economy, the problem is Christians just don’t have enough votes to swing the election.

Reason #2: Boycotting a Movie Fosters a Retreat from Culture

Different Christians have different approaches to impacting the culture. H. Richard Niebhur has the most well-known classification of stances toward culture from his book Christ and Culture: 1) Christ Against Culture 2) Christ of Culture 3) Christ above Culture 4) Christ and Culture in Paradox 5) Christ the Transformer of Culture. Niebhur doesn’t explicitly advocate one specific approach, but it’s reasonable to assume he favors the last one.

I think at times most or all of Niebhur’s stances may be necessary depending on which aspect of culture is in question. But in general, I don’t think a retreat from culture, at least not in terms of Hollywood films, will have the intended affect. When Christians draw back from culture and form their own cultural colonies, the world tosses us a disinterested glance and continues business as usual. Withdrawing from the movies will hardly make a mark on the movies Hollywood produces.

Making Different Movies

[inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]So how do Christians protest morally debased movies? Make different ones.[/inlinetweet]

Crouch says in his book, “If culture is to change, it will be because of some new tangible (or audible or visible or olfactory) thing is presented to a wide enough public that it begins to reshape their world.” If Christians are opposed to the movies currently being made, the solution is not to stop going to the movies. Nor is the solution to go to other movies. Each of these has their place. But an even more powerful form of protest is making other movies.

Christians should foster what Tim Keller calls, “a faithful presence within the culture.” Instead of keeping Christians out of movies and movie making we should encourage them to live out their faith in the midst of their work. We try to simply be Christian as we practice our vocations and live out the cruciform life amidst our neighbors.

This does not mean that boycotts will never be necessary. What it means is that [inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]when Christians make movies, if they are faithful to their beliefs, the movies they produce can’t help being Christian in some sense.[/inlinetweet] Not that movies made by Christians will always be about Jesus or the Bible. Culture making simply means that when believers make something, their Christianity will seep out of their hearts and into their craft.

It’s Complicated

There’s no single method for Christians to protest a bad movie. Like most large problems it requires a menu of responses. But Christians should remember that perhaps their greatest ability to impact the movies lies not in boycotting them, but in creating different ones.