I love it when something happens to get mainstream Christianity’s undies all in a bunch. The Sex and the City movie is getting a mixed bag of reviews – both on its quality and on its morality – and as these things usually go, there is a faction of flame throwers leading the pack who have never even seen an episode of the series, much less the movie.
This sort of thing reminds me of the time Jeffrey Overstreet was invited to be interviewed for a talk show addressing the question of whether the media was anti-religious, only to have his invitation withdrawn because his opinion wasn’t extreme enough (you can read his account of that here).
I’m not suggesting you have to like the movie in order to be cool or a well-educated Believer – I’m not even saying you have to go see it. All I’m asking is that we exercise the mind God gave us to think critically about why we believe what we believe and why we hold certain opinions, rather than spouting of dogmatic reactions.
Anyhow, as you can see, I got sucked into this one big time. It all started when I left this comment on Jeffrey’s blog. He appreciated my thoughts, and asked if I would be interested in writing a review since he hadn’t seen the movie.
I also had these thoughts (spoiler warning).
And here are a few other links for you to peruse, in no particular order…
Other reactions compiled by Jeffrey Overstreet.
My review on Looking Closer Journal
Corrupting soon at a theater near you?
Discussion on the Arts and Faith forum.
From Hollywood Jesus – Can Sex and the City be Biblical?
From Hollywood Jesus – a movie review.
From Past the Popcorn – a review.
From Christianity Today – a review.
Feedback regarding the Christianity Today review.
And of course, how could I forget the man I have a review-crush on, Roger Ebert.
Hey, Jen. It actually took seeing a Norwegian subtitled arthouse film called Reprise for me to “get” SatC. I still think the film, as a film per se, is one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time — but now I understand the appeal for its target audience.
(Which is not to say the target audience doesn’t care about aesthetics or film theory, btw. 3:10 to Yuma was pretty horrible as films go, too — but it was pretty darned popular, also, for similar reasons. Meeting genre or demographic expectations often trumps filmmaking technique… and probably rightly so, considering that films, after all, have to make money to “succeed.”)