Can Jesus Save Hollywood?

I have been meaning to blog on this for some time…

The December edition of the Atlantic carried a fascinating piece entitled Can Jesus Save Hollywood, by Washington Post staff writer Hanna Rosin (a name to look out for in the future). The Atlantic piece forcussed on the mainstreaming of religiously and in particular Christian-themed films. It argued that Christian audiences had become a major market for Hollywood producers, whilst also highlighting the way Christian themes had become the new margin, or edge in the film and television world. “Christian is the new gay,” being perhaps the most telling quote to highlight the way producers were now willing to tackle, in real-world tanglible ways, the day to day life struggles of Christians.

Part of the article focussed on the film and television school, Act One. In many ways Act One seems to me to be exactly the direction that theological education should be heading (towards vocation and away from jurisdiction). What I like about Act One is that it is so oriented towards Christian vocation within the engineroom of modern culture. Moreover it utilises faculty like Dean Batali, who wrote for two of my favourite shows, Duckman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

A good place to start finding out more about Act One is at Church of the Masses, the blog of Barbara Nicolosi, a scripwriter who also works with Act One.

[tags] Faith and Film, Film, Act One, Dean Batali, Barbara Nicolosi, Theology and Culture [/tags]