Are you "Saved"? Why are the narrow-minded in a uproar?

Saved! set in evangelical high school. Jewish director says film promotes tolerance while cleric calls it 'a filth and freak show'
:nuke:
"Saved!" is a satire aimed at narrow-minded Christians, using as its weapon the values of a more tolerant brand of Christianity. It is also a high school comedy, starring names from the top shelf of teenage movie

The heroine is Mary (Malone), whose mother Lillian (Parker) has recently been named the town's No. 1 Christian Interior Decorator. Mary's boyfriend is Dean (Faust, an interesting name in this context). One day they're playing a game that involves shouting out secrets to each other while underwater in the swimming pool, and Dean bubbles: "I think I'm gay!" Mary is shocked, bangs her head, thinks she sees Jesus (he's actually the pool maintenance guy) and realizes it is her mission to save Dean. That would involve having sex with him, she reasons, since only such a drastic act could bring him over to the hetero side. She believes that under the circumstances, Jesus will restore her virginity.

Jesus does not, alas, intervene, and Mary soon finds herself staring at the implacable blue line on her home pregnancy kit. Afraid to tell her mother, she visits Planned Parenthood, and is spotted by Cassandra and Roland.

Cassandra: "There's only one reason Christian girls come downtown to the Planned Parenthood!

Roland: "She's planting a pipe bomb?"

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-saved28f.html




Religious debate mounts over movie

Saved has been under growing attack from the Christian right since it was screened at this year's Sundance Festival. Some of the most blistering Internet criticisms come from cleric Terry Watkins and his Dial-The-Truth Ministries. He labels the film "an irreverent, sick, blasphemous comedy" and "a filth and freak show."

Watkins is particularly incensed by the character of the school rebel, played by Eva Amurri. She is "a rebellious, smoking, anti-Christ Jewish teen who mocks and ridicules the kooky Christians."

Watkins also implies that the film has a subversive pro-gay agenda: "Did I fail to mention that most of the Saved! production staff is homosexuals or homosexual advocates?" he asks on three separate occasions in his comments. His targets appear to be Stern and R.E.M. rocker Michael Stipe, who co-produced the film, as well as writer-director Brian Dannelly.

(Snip)

Stern says his film, which is scheduled to open across Canada in June, preaches a positive Christian message about compassion and forgiveness.

"You try to find a piece of material that's going to set you apart from the pack," Stern says. "I've never seen a screenplay before that combined religion, comedy and high schools in one script and had a positive message with something to say."

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=d761a863-46c4-498d-9ecf-4a12d0466e87

TRAILERS
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Saved-1132639/trailers.php
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332375/trailers

REVIEWS
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Saved-1132639/reviews.php
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332375/

On Edit: Added Reviews

:-)

"Watkins also implies that the film has a subversive pro-gay agenda: "Did I fail to mention that most of the Saved! production staff is homosexuals or homosexual advocates?" he asks on three separate occasions in his comments. His targets appear to be Stern and R.E.M. rocker Michael Stipe, who co-produced the film, as well as writer-director Brian Dannelly."

Didn't think it would be my kind of thing, but I'll have to reconsider. Did you say, Dial-the-Truth ministries? Are you sure that's not a satirical thing? Surely no one would come up with that and not expect to be mocked.

payback is a bitch

many of the scenes described, it definitely comes off as very offensive to Christians, very disrespectful. I just try to reverse the tables and I can't help thinking that if a movie like this would never be made about Muslims or Hindus or any other major world religion... But because it's evangelical Christians, somehow it's OK to mock it... I don't think that's right.

so was dogma. fine cinema nonetheless.

Including Muslims and Jews and Christians. Since the major religions are all based on total illogic and are filled with contradiction and hypocrisy they are ripe for satire.

Atheists are demeaned all the time, and nobody stands up for us...

But even making fun of atheists should be okay. This is SUPPOSED to be a free country.

If the bible bumpers are so offended, they shouldn't see it.

this should be outlawed or something. But as a Christian, it stinks to high heaven, and I have a right to say I believe it stinks. That doesn't make me "pharisaical" -- it simply means that I am revolted when the Lord and Savior of my life whom I love is mocked in this way. And I am grateful to live in a country where I can say this freely.

Or the backbiting hypocrites who claim to be his followers?

make the Christian faith look supremely foolish, make fun of Christian traditions and practices, and don't include even one Christian character that is NOT a hypocritical jerk. It's basically a 90-minute mockery of Christians in general. And indirectly an attack on Christianity and Christ himself.

It actually feels like a backlash for The Passion, and it simply reinforces most Christian views that Hollywood has absolutely nothing in common with what they believe.

Is there hypocrisy among Christians? Yes, far too much. and there always has been. But it's certainly not being condoned. I can't stand the behavior of people who say they love God but act in very unloving ways towards their fellow man. But I also dislike broad-brush judgments on an entire segment of the population based on the actions of a few, too.

Just the ridiculous ways in which fundamentalists distort his teachings.

Years ago when Life of Brian first came out, I saw an interview with Graham Chapman of Monty Python. He was asked whether the movie made fun of Jesus, and he said that it didn't, because it wouldn't have been good comedy. The best comedy, according to him, was based on making fun of people who were stupid or hypocritical or even evil. If you made fun of a good person, it only made you look bad.

I'm a liberal Christian, and I liked both Life of Brian and Dogma. In fact, I saw Dogma on the recommendation of my priest, and it was a very thoughtful film in its own loopy way. I was surprised that the controversial casting of Alanis Morrissette as God actually worked.

I think I'll probably like Saved, as well.

There's been a history of conservative Christians, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, condemning movies that they haven't even seen. For example, they condemned the British movie Priest because one of the characters was a gay Catholic priest, who shared a parish with a straight priest who was sleeping with his housekeeper. Yet the movie was not principally about sex, and both priests were devout and genuinely concerned about their parishioners, only at odds about how to serve them best. On every level it was about ideals versus reality, and it's one of my favorite films of the 1990s.

I genuinely cannot think of a major film (or any other film) that has actually mocked Jesus.

to you is to see the movie before grumbling about it.

Numerous reviews I've read have referred to it as "faith-affirming", and said that it does not treat the subject of Christian faith as an object for ridicule. I think (and again, I haven't seen it either) the film takes the hypocrisy of some Christians and the tendency some have to use a faith that should be about forgiveness and love to bludgeon other people, and yeah, I think it makes some fun of that. But I've read several reviews that called it "pro-faith". My own fear would be that it would bend over too far backwards not to offend... But I'm certainly looking forward to deciding myself.

made with a Christ-centered audience in mind. It seems to appeal to Americans who believe a God exists but can't agree on whether He has called them to live according to any standard. The heroes of the film acknowledge God with their lips, but they live according to their own desires and moral standards, not Christ's.

Because although I don't self identify as a Christian, I do know a little bit about the words attributed to Jesus. I also know he seemed much more concerned about the poor and the sick and the downtrodden than he did about what orafices people were sticking their naughty bits into, and under what circumstances. I also think he reserved certain special words for people who spent an awful lot of time judging other people's behavior.

Beyond that, it seems to me a lot of people have varying interpretations of what "Christ's" moral standards were, and usually they tend to conform to the agenda of the person doing the interpreting. Here are mine, although -like I said- I'm by no means a "Christian":

Do unto others.
Love your neighbor.
Turn the other cheek.
Judge not.

Nothing in there, as far as I can tell, about getting worked up over who the guy down the street is boffing.

cheek, judging not lest you be judged. But that's not all; Jesus himself made strong statements regarding justice too. This is not my own personal agenda (if I had my own way, I'd probably lean more towards a God who was more lenient too!) but the words of the Bible.

Jesus spoke more about judgment and hell than about anything else. More than half his parables were about these subjects. The Bible's message is Good News - but it is only Good News in the context of the bad news that comes first--we're hopelessly, helplessly lost if we try to make it to Heaven by our own power.

I kind of look at it from this perspective: I love my children dearly; however, I must discipline them for their own good. If I never discipline them, they'll end up in terrible shape, maybe even dead. If I never disciplined them, I would not truly love them.

God is our perfect parent, and He loves us more than we can imagine, but he is also a just God. He cannot tolerate sin. That's why Jesus came along, to take on that sin for us, if we believe and are sorry for the things we've done wrong. That's what makes the Good News of the Gospel good--first the bad news is we're lost without it. The cool thing is that we don't have to do a thing--it's already been done for us--we just have to accept the gift.

The slippery slope that some fall down is the new definition of 'tolerance' -- tolerance doesn't mean tolerance of whatever sin someone chooses to do.

Sorry if the above seems "sermony" -- it was the best way I could think of to express the core truths as believed by the vast majority of Christians.

You're right--there's nothing in the teachings of Christ that should make us, in your words, "worked up over the guy down the street boffing" -- in fact, Jesus really hated self-righteousness (remember the Pharisees?); I hate it when I see it in other Christians too. What works me up is seeing lies and half-truths spread about the message of the Bible.

Peace,

It mocks the way so many humans go about supposedly worshipping him.

I've yet to see a movie that actually mocks God himself.

..I saw, and enjoyed "Dogma." One's religion is not very strong if it can't take a little jab now and then.

their sense of humor; sure, I can take a jab now and then.

I guess what really troubles me is a broad-brush lumping together of evangelical Christians who believe in the veracity of the Bible. As an active Christian most of my adult life, I have never once met anyone who even closely resembles the types of hypocrits that Hollywood portrays in the movies. The kinds who make the news, the Fred Phelpses, etc., are such a tiny minority... The Christians I know would give you the shirt off their back if they knew you needed it.

My best friend from childhood is a devout catholic. He exemplifies the social justice/jesuits helping indigineous people in Central America wing of the church, as opposed to the "no birth control" wing of the church. We agree on almost everything.

I concur that it's bad to generalize. But everyone gets generalized in movies. Much-maligned Christians will get some sympathy from me the next time I see a positive portrayal of a hippie in a hollywood movie, which will be sometime well past hell freezing over.

offensive:

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_05_30_atrios_archive.html#108594138105819735

(Eloriel has linked to it in another thread. Thanks E!)

I find "Christian" offense to be mostly self-righteous Pharisaism.

under his belt. Good on ya, Stipey! :thumbsup:

Yeah, as an REM fan since 1983, the Stipe angle was how I heard about it first. His involvement alone would be enough to get me to go see it.

Every time the nattering nabobs of cultural conservatism get their panties in a bunch over a movie, it does better at the box office. Witness the hoo-hah over Bad Santa, which I thought was one of the funniest movies of last year.

more condemnation coming from the Faux Christians...

these people are so wrong about what the Bible teaches....

Would Jesus love a liberal? You bet!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/liberalchristians.htm

I, for one, can't wait to see this!

imagine that. If a Christian had made a movie about a Jewish school like this, DU would go nuts calling them anti-semitic.

-sorry, but that alone will doom it, imho.

Remember the old tv series 'Eight is Enough' ? The acting reminded me of that insipid POS show. I don't think any theme or point of view could overcome acting that bad.

They're still waiting for its arrival.

Yeah, if Ken Starr is straight then I'm a Halliburton CEO.

I tend to like those dark comedies and one that points out the shear hypocrisy of some people (or at least things aren't always so black in white in terms of what is moral) should be a good one. :thumbsup:

I can't think of a more convincing and stellar endorsement than that.

LOL.

-- Allen