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It's the same thing in the classic Western and in action- adventure films today. The inherently good individual knows what's right and is going to do that in the end.

I think Christians should look for more ambiguity in characterization than we see in Hollywood films. If people are inherently good, in the end you know what they're going to do: they're going to do the right thing (however that is defined in the particular movie). But I think the Bible gives us a more ambiguous view of human beings as fallen creatures, fallen but capable of being redeemed. You see that in films like Leap of Faith and The Apostle.

Many Christians complain that Hollywood, at least until very recently, hasn't treated religion as respect fully as it used to.

Think about David in the Bible. He is an adulterer. He's a voyeur. He's complicit in murder. And yet the Bible refers to him as a man after God's own heart. Look at the cloud of witnesses listed in Hebrews 11: they are all sinful, and anything they accomplished is due not to their own rugged individualism but to God's grace.

There are historical and legal reasons for that. In the 1930s, Hollywood had a Production Code it was required to follow. In part, it said,

No film or episode in a film should be allowed to throw ridicule on any religious faith honestly maintained. Ministers of religion in their characters of ministers should not be used in comedy, as villains, or as unpleasant persons.

The reason for this is not that there are not such ministers of religion, but because the attitude toward them tends to be an attitude toward religion in general. Religion is lowered in the minds of the audience because it lowers their respect for the ministers.

Ceremonies of any definite religion should be supervised by someone thoroughly conversant with that religion.

For how long did that code guide producers and directors?

The Production Code was an effort to build a consensus about American culture. And part of that was to show respect for religion, even as it tended to generalize faith.

Though mostly written in the late 1920s, the 1930 Production Code wasn't enforced until July 1934 when the Production Code Administration, headed largely by Catholics, was created. It was effective through the 1950s and was replaced in 1968 with the rating system.

Why did it break down as a guideline?

Beginning with a court case, Mutual Film Corporation v. Ohio in 1915, motion pictures were denied the free-speech protection of the First Amendment. That made them vulnerable to censorship. So rather than submit to federal regulation, or have local or state censorship groups, which meant that Hollywood might have to produce different prints for different areas of the country (not a commercially viable option), they opted for self-regulation. The Production Code ensured that a film would be acceptable to a general audience, which, it was understood, meant it would be appropriate for a 12-year-old. In 1952 the Supreme Court overturned the earlier ruling and extended free-speech protection to motion pictures. It was only a matter of time before producers and directors felt more free to treat religion in films differently.

What other factors go into Hollywood's treatment of religion?

Hollywood films are meant to appeal to a wide audience. Recent figures show that if you take the average production budget, average marketing and advertising costs, and average distribution costs, the typical film has to sell about 25 million tickets in order to break even. You can have a book on The New York Times bestseller list, nonfiction, selling 100,000 copies (or even less); an album goes platinum selling a million copies. Twenty-five million tickets—that's a lot.

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February 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2