Yesterday we mentioned the success of “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony, the first singer-songwriter to top the Billboard charts with his first record and without even a recording contract. Though the public adores the song, it is getting criticism from both progressives and certain strains of conservatives. I want to address those.
First, for those of you who haven’t watched and listened to the video, here it is:
He laments how he and people like him are working to the point of exhaustion for little pay, only to be hit by inflation and taxes. The “rich men north of Richmond”–a great rhyme, by the way–which is where the Washington, D.C. metroplex begins, are not only exploiting him, they are trying to control him.
This is a song of frustration and alienation, which is leading many to alcohol and drug abuse, to intentional or unintentional suicide:
Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground
‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down.
Progressives are dismissing the song, with an abundance of snark, as a “right wing anthem.” (See for example, this.) I find that astonishing and extremely revealing about what has happened to the left.
This is a song from the working class! It’s a plea for social justice! The working man is condemning his exploitation by the rich!
That used to be the bread and butter of leftwing activists, though their rhetoric was often far less authentic than what we hear from this beaten-down man pouring his heart out.
What is the left’s objection? Well, they say it’s racist, of course, though it says nothing about race. They apparently assume the obese welfare recipients that both Anthony so much are black, but there are lots of obese white people on welfare, so the charge actually smacks of the critics’ racism.
The fact is, black Americans are putting out supportive rap remixes of “Rich Men North of Richmond” that are equally anguished and passionate. Listen to Black Pegasus:
And to MarineRapper:
The left used to be on the side of the working class, to the point of saying that racism was just a bourgeois tactic to divide white workers and black workers, keeping them from realizing that they have common problems and interests, mainly that they are both exploited by “rich men.”
No more. Progressivism has abandoned its earlier focus on economic class in favor of identity politics. Today’s leftist would sympathize with the black working class, but most emphatically not the white working class. In the sort of classist condescension they used to condemn, they look down their noses at those country-music loving deplorables, those uneducated supporters of Donald Trump to whom they are so much socially superior.
But there is some good news in the new bourgeois left’s contempt for the working class. Maybe we don’t have to worry about communism any more. The left has no stomach for Karl Marx, with his class struggle and promised revolution. Today’s progressive utopia may be similarly totalitarian, but it won’t overthrow the rich, the middle class, or those who are in control, since it’s the leftists who have attained that social and economic power.
(By the way, Anthony has just slammed Republicans for “weaponizing” his song. Describing his own politics as being right down the center, he said that everyone on the stage at the G.O.P. debate, where a clip of his song was played, is one of those people his song is about, namely, rich men north of Richmond. To reiterate, the song is about social class, not politics. But his larger point is that “government can’t save us.”)
Leftists are also criticizing these lines:
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere.
The allusion, of course, is to “rich man” Jeffrey Epstein and his private island where he hosted rich and powerful guests to have sex with underaged girls. To progressive critics, this smacks of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory Qanon, with its pedophile villains. This is also the left’s criticism of the crowd-sourced hit movie Sound of Freedom, about a man who works to liberate children who are the victims of sex traffickers.
Now you do not have to believe in Qanon or support Donald Trump to be concerned about Jeffrey Epstein and the sex trafficking of children. Do the critics believe that Epstein was innocent? Do they deny that children are being trafficked? Perhaps the left has a problem of denialism when it comes to child sexual abuse, similar to 9-11 denialism.
Ironically, Oliver Anthony and his song are also being criticized by some conservatives. (See, for example, this.) If you’re complaining about “bullsh*t” pay, you just need to get a better job! America is the land of opportunity! Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! Stop complaining!
It just isn’t easy for someone in small town rural America to just get another job. All of the available jobs where you live probably pay about the same.
So move to the city! Move north of Richmond and you too can be a rich man!
Well, he doesn’t have the Ivy League degrees that are so prized north of Richmond. And H.R. directors in the tech industry would have no place for him. And he just wouldn’t fit in with the Georgetown social scene.
Yes, factories in some parts of the country are hiring. But moving isn’t easy. If you are lucky enough to own your own home in rural America–maybe because you inherited it from your grandparents–you can’t just sell it. There is hardly anyone in your rural small town who can buy it. But if you could go to the city–as many have, with the population in rural areas depleting–you would be leaving behind your extended family, your friends, your dogs, the beautiful countryside that is the backdrop of Anthony’s video, and your roots behind. That too comes at a high emotional cost. (Listen to another, older, cry of the heart on that subject from another country singer, the great Bobby Bare, entitled Detroit City.)
Besides, Anthony did the equivalent of getting a better job and taking advantage of America as the land of opportunity. He wrote and performed a song and put it on YouTube! He reportedly received an offer from a record company worth $8 million. And turned it down! Money, for him, isn’t the point!
The point is that the rich men north of Richmond make him feel that he has no value–that’s what the paycheck symbolizes–that he is worthless, looked down upon, disrespected. And the critics are proving him right.
Finally, Anthony and his song are being criticized by some evangelical Christians! Christianity Today published an article entitled Oliver Anthony’s Viral Hit Doesn’t Love Its Neighbors. This is because he is “disdainful” towards people on welfare.
But he explicitly shows sympathy for people in need: “Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat.” His problem is with people “milkin’ welfare.” He contrasts people who actually “ain’t got nothin’ to eat” with those who are “obese” and using their food stamps to eat “Fudge Rounds,” his point being that they don’t need the welfare, while other people genuinely go hungry.
But that’s not the point either. Rich men north of Richmond keep conveying the sense that he and his kind are bad people. They are racist, sexist, homophobic, gun-owning, right wing, etc., etc., etc. And they keep finding new crimes for which he is guilty. Here he is “fat-shaming.”
Christians do have a record of rendering uncharitable moral judgements on other people, and now–even though the rich men north of Richmond think we too are deplorable for the same reasons Anthony is–some of us are piling on. Anthony at least admits he is a sinner, and has been telling about his abuse of alcohol and drugs and how he has turned to God for deliverance.
Instead of moralistically tut-tutting his shortcomings (other Christians are condemning him for the song’s foul language), we Christians should love our neighbor by showing Oliver Anthony and people like him a little sympathy!
With its superhero movies and predictable sequels no longer attracting crowds, Hollywood is finally noticing the films that actually are attracting crowds and money: high-quality, faith-based fare like Sound of Freedom, The Chosen, and Jesus Revolution.
This is no longer solely a crowd-sourcing phenomenon. Now some big studios and big directors are planning to get in on the action. Moreover, the number of movies that are not explicitly religious but have positive moral and redemptive content is also up dramatically.
This is the subject of the cover story in the latest Newsweek, entitled Jesus Takes Hollywood. It gives some fascinating information about those three recent movies. Most faith-based films were made apart from the Hollywood film industry, raising money through small donations and doing the production with small companies.
But some of the movies made that way have been among the most successful of all time if you go by the metric of “box office as a multiple of budget” (how much the movie took in factored against how much it cost to make). Paul Bond, who wrote the Newsweek story, cites the record of Sherwood Pictures, a ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia. In 2006 it made Facing the Giants for $100,000; the football drama brought in $10.6 million. In 2006, the church made Fireproof for $500,000, which made 67 times that amount ($33,456,317).
Meanwhile, the production values–the writing, acting, and cinematography–keep getting better. as is especially evident in The Chosen, the video series about the life of Christ, which has now been seen by 110 million viewers.
And now the big players are moving in. MGM, 21st Century Fox, and Sony Pictures have opened their own faith-based studios. And two of the most acclaimed directors, Terrence Malick and Martin Scorsese, both of whom are professing Christians, are planning movies about Jesus. Scorsese attempted that once before with the controversial Last Temptation of Christ, but the director, an observant Catholic, has reportedly told the pope that this one will be more reverent.
Bond quotes Christian author Ted Baehr, who has been monitoring moral and spiritual issues in the movie industry for decades: “There’s a tremendously powerful movement toward Jesus right now that most people aren’t aware of,” he says. “The nature of man is to be hostile to Christianity and to salvation. But there’s more and more people in Hollywood moving in the other direction.”
Baehr’s publication Movieguide, which assesses movies according to a strict Christian standard, bears that out. The percentage of films with “positive Christian/redemptive content” was just 10% in 1991. In 2022, the percentage, which includes secular films with a moral impact like Top Gun: Maverick, was 59%.
The Newsweek article says that the public’s interest in religious fare is not limited to movies and streaming TV. Sales of religion-themed books reached 20.1 million in the first six months of 2023, which is 23% higher than the same period in 2020.
The irony, of course, is the great interest in Christian movies at the very time that interest in the Christian church seems to be at an all time low.
As we have blogged about, many Americans who, as they say, “identify” as Christians and even as evangelicals no longer go to church. And the evangelical ethos of faith being a “personal relationship with Jesus” can encourage that. Why do I need a church if the sacraments are just symbolic, I can interpret the Bible for myself, and I don’t need any authorities, creeds, or traditions? Going to church can be a pain and a bother. But going to a Christian movie or reading a Christian book can be a pleasant substitute.
And yet church-going Christians still constitute nearly a third (32%) of Americans. That’s a big market.
Hollywood’s problem is that lots of people have stopped going to movies. A study from last year found that 41% of those surveyed said they rarely go to the movies, with 18% saying they never do. That comes to 59% of the general public that have lost their interest in movie theaters. Part of the reason, surely, is competition from streaming services, which simply package and deliver films in a different way, which faith-based projects are also taking advantage of. But the shrunken market means that the 32% of church-goers can have an outsized impact when they decide to go to the movies.
The marketplace provides a mechanism for Christians’ cultural influence. Newsweek quotes Mark Sourian, the head of production for The Chosen:
“There’s all sorts of negative notions about Christians in Hollywood, but there’s no stronger argument to dispel those notions than success. . . .Everyone in Hollywood will become a Christian if there’s money in it.”
That’s cynical, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Of course the big studios are getting into “faith-based” filmmaking to make money, not because they are embracing the cause of faith. But if a large enough public patronizes positive films–not just explicitly religious movies but those with a strong moral compass–and, importantly, do not patronize morally corrupting films, of course there will be more positive films.
Not just Christians but just about everybody is finding Sound of Freedom, the story of a man’s crusade against child sex trafficking, inspiring. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 70% of the critics gave it a positive review (a remarkably good number for a faith-based film), but 99% of the public did.
Just about everybody is bored with the same old formulas repeated ad nauseam. And times are too hard for bleak, depressing, and degraded material to be enjoyed as entertainment, unlike the rebellious Sixties. So exciting, involving, and inspiring movies that mean something will attract audiences.
Yes, there is still an antipathy for Christians in Hollywood, as with the rest of our cultural elite, despising Christianity for its stance on homosexuality, gender, and fornication. Still, if you watch a movie or a streaming show and one of the characters is carrying a Bible, he will likely turn out to be the bad guy.
But it may be that the climate is changing. “Some of the faithful are hoping that the renewed interest in Jesus in the mass market could also prompt a revival in faith,” observes Bond. Indeed, movies can be a way of reaching people who never go to church.
Bond quotes Craig Detweiler, president of the Wedgewood Circle, which funds religious media: “There’s a deep hunger for spiritually significant stories rooted in eternal questions of life and death, and life after death.” The pandemic only intensified that hunger and that need. “Jesus has always been in the public domain,” he adds. “It’s the intellectual property that God has shared with the world.”
Photo: Jesus at Wedding with Kids, Episode 5 of The Chosen. by The Chosen press photos (press.thechosen.tv) – https://www.press.thechosen.tv/?pgid=judjmpl7-c1493a39-5527-4ff7-bdc5-8439d32fbfdc, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93752539
A Trump official is being raked over the coals for what he did in the third grade when he was 8 years old.
Remember our discussion Are Adults Still Responsible for What They Did as Minors? That was occasioned by Brett Kavanaugh being accused for things he did as a high school student. I asked how far back we should go in unearthing bad behavior that adults should still be held responsible for. I raised some hypothetical cases, including one exaggerated for effect about a five-year-old boy who hit his sister getting accused of violence against women when he is an adult. I also warned that the Kavanaugh accusations might set a precedent for criticizing adults for what they did as children. Well, it is happening.
Stephen Miller is President Trump’s senior political advisor. His third grade teacher wrote a piece for Hollywood Reporter saying that when he was 8 years old, Miller was dirty and a “loner.” Also he ate glue.
Do you remember that character in Peanuts, the one called Pig Pen, with the dust cloud and crumbs flying all around him? That was Stephen Miller at 8. I was always trying to get him to clean up his desk — he always had stuff mashed up in there. He was a strange dude. I remember he would take a bottle of glue — we didn’t have glue sticks in those days — and he would pour the glue on his arm, let it dry, peel it off and then eat it.
I remember being concerned about him — not academically. He was OK with that, though I could never read his handwriting. But he had such strange personal habits. He was a loner and isolated and off by himself all the time.
How could we let someone of such low character, who did something so heinous as eat glue, work in the White House?
By the way, this does not come from the Onion or any other satirical site. This is not a joke, unless it turns out to be like one of those academic pranks designed to see just how outlandish a claim can be and yet get published. Again, this was published by the Hollywood Reporter.
But that raises another question: Why did that trade journal publish this story? It has nothing to do with movies, acting, or the entertainment industry, other than that industry’s overall hatred for anything and anyone having to do with President Trump.
Photo: Stephen Miller by Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
Martin Luther: The Idea That Changed the World is a film funded by Thrivent to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. First Lutheran Church in Ponca City secured a local movie theater and opened it up for free to anyone who wanted to see the movie. (Go here to learn how to host a screening and for further information. It will reportedly be shown on PBS. I suspect its longer life will be on DVD eventually.) So we attended the screening.
The movie is not a drama about the life of Luther, as earlier Luther movies have been. This is a documentary with dramatic re-enactments. There is a narrator throughout (Downton Abbey‘s Hugh Bonneville), with experts discussing the different facets of Luther’s life and career. Meanwhile, we see these episodes acted out, with the requisite settings and effects. I’m not a huge fan of this hybrid of documentary and drama, but this one works as well as I’ve seen. Luther’s life is so interesting and so inherently dramatic that the narrative is gripping and entertaining, even though it is continually interrupted by the scholars. (Review continued, plus trailer, after the jump) (more…)
The movie Selma will be released next weekend and is already receiving great acclaim and Oscar buzz for its portrayal of Martin Luther King’s crusade for Civil Rights, centering in the demonstration he organized in Selma, Alabama.
But narratives, even apparently factual movies, like to have a villain, so Selma turns President Lyndon Baines Johnson into King’s nemesis. But historians are disputing that characterization, pointing out that LBJ was the president who proposed, pushed through, and implemented the Civil Rights laws. In fact, he even proposed the tactics to sway public opinion that King used in Selma!
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