The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

Movies and McMarketing

March 2nd, 2006

Yesterday the short film “The McPassion of the Christ,” a satire of the way Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was marketed to churches across the U.S, premiered. Yes, its timing with Ash Wednesday was no coincidence, since that was also when The Passion opened in 2004. The 4-minute film will be available online for forty days—and, again, the correspondence with Lent is no coincidence.

So, is “The McPassion”’s writer and co-producer Rik Swartzwelder calling on someone to repent? And if so, who?

According to an interview with Mark Moring of Christianity Today, Swartzwelder doesn’t blame Hollywood, saying he has “the utmost respect for their ability to market and sell.” “This is not about Hollywood,” he continues. “It’s not Hollywood’s responsibility what happens in churches. That’s the church’s responsibility.”

What Swartzwelder most objected to was the way many church leaders advocated The Passion from the pulpit. Says Swartzwelder, “It’s one thing if a pastor sees a film and wants to share that with his congregation. It’s another thing when you start marketing a film sight-unseen just because you’ve been pitched it.”

On the “Discussion” section of the “McPassion” web site, Swartzwelder further explains his objection to the placement of the movie sales-pitch in worship: “Why can’t at least some of our gathering times be a sanctuary from commerce? Why can’t the church be the one place lost and hurting people can go to heal and seek shelter from financial exploitation? From being told their lives will remain incomplete without buying this book, this pill, this…one…more…thing?”

Later on, he comments, “One thing I do know, the only time Jesus got intensely angry in the New Testament was when commerce got too close to the worship at the temple…adding unnecessary merchandise to the shoulders of those that were already burdened and broken. That’s worth paying attention to, I believe.”

Swartzwelder doesn’t want churches to stop talking about movies—on the contrary, he finds it exciting that they’ve begun to do so. “For the first time,” he says, “there’s interesting films made by Christian filmmakers, and we’re really opening up doors there. But I think there’s a danger of getting so excited about that, that we forget to remember that films, at the end of the day, are products. They shape culture and they’re stories, but they’re also products that people sell. I’m just hoping to spark discussion about where that line might be. I’m hoping that leaders and pastors can talk about these issues, and we can together find out where that line is.”

This is Swartzwelder’s hope, but he also acknowledges that many Christians may find “The McPassion” offensive. I watched it last night, and I guffawed quite a bit. But I do wonder if that’s because I’d heard about the “McPassion” from Christianity Today’s web site, and I knew it bore the ultimate stamp of approval (ironically, the same stamp that caused many to trust The Passion): it was made by a Christian.

In addition to questioning the marketing of films within worship, I think we also need to be wary of dubbing a movie “safe” based on the religious affiliation of its creator. I’m much more likely to be curious about a movie if I know it was written or directed by Christians, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But Jesus can work his way into a film, regardless of who made it, and I don’t want to close off the possibility of finding him where I don’t expect him.

And then there’s the issue of a film’s quality and artistry, but I’ll leave that for another day . . .

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