Zuzu’s petals

To fully appreciate the perspective, values and standards of “Movieguide,” consider this: They present an annual award called the Faith & Values Crystal Teddy Bear Award for Dedication to Redeeming the Values of the Mass Media of Entertainment.

Last year, a Special Lifetime Faith & Values Crystal Teddy Bear Award for Dedication to Redeeming the Values of the Mass Media of Entertainment was given to Pat Boone.

I don’t know if they refer to this as the F&VCTBADRVMME for short, or if they just refer to it as the “Crystal Teddy Bear.” (I tried Googling “crystal” + “teddy” + “bear,” but all I got was a bunch of stories about Ted Haggard.) The actual award itself is, in fact, a Lucite teddy-bear statuette — cuddly, but in a hard and brittle kind of way.

Imagine we were assigned as a committee to design an artistic award. Our instructions for this design would be to create something so hideously tasteless and aesthetically maladroit that it would signal to all the world, unambiguously, that neither the presenter nor the recipient should ever be allowed to have anything to do with or say about the arts. After rejecting the rhinestone-encrusted Thomas Kinkade painting in the gold-plated frame as not quite ugly enough, someone on the committee suggests a teddy bear statuette. A crystal teddy bear statuette. We would all sit silent for a moment, picturing such a thing in our heads. And then we’d all laugh and move on, trying to come up with something a little less over the top.

So again, let me just repeat that this was something that really happened: Last year, Movieguide presented Pat Boone with a Special Lifetime Faith & Values Crystal Teddy Bear Award for Dedication to Redeeming the Values of the Mass Media of Entertainment.

Movieguide judges films according to a whole alphabet of possible sins. Their glossary* includes the usual suspects of sex, violence, nudity and strong language, but also things like:

Ab – Mild or light anti-biblical, anti-Christian or anti-Jewish worldview or elements
AbAb – Strong anti-biblical, anti-Christian or anti-Jewish worldview or elements
AbAbAb – Very strong anti-biblical, anti-Christian or anti-Jewish worldview or elements …
ACap – Anti-capitalism, anti-wealth, politics of envy
AP – Anti-patriotism or anti-Americanism …
E – Environmentalism or environmentalist worldview
Ev – Evolutionary worldview or elements
Fe – Feminist worldview or elements
FR – Non-Christian worldview or false religions, such as Mormonism or legalism
H – Humanist worldview or humanism (incl. Marxism, communism, socialism, etc.)
Ho – Homosexual worldview or homosexuality (incl. sodomy & lesbianism)
I – Internationalist or globalist worldview or elements …

For a sense of how Movieguide measures such things, see for example their review of The Walker, the latest film from Calvin College graduate Paul Schrader,** which they condemn for “Excessive Leftist Elements.” What that means, apparently, is that the protagonist is homosexual, prompting a long rant, which is part of Movieguide’s review but has nothing to do with the film:

A self-declared follower of Jesus, or member of a recognized Christian church, who publicly accepts homosexuality, adultery or any other sin — as many leaders, pundits and celebrities have done — is making a mockery of his or her faith. Such people are the ultimate hypocrites and false teachers. Their misguided public actions and speeches present a grave public danger to all the world’s children. We must publicly and/or privately call them to repent and turn to Jesus.

So, according to the Movieguide folks, I’m not really a follower of Jesus, but rather a “false teacher” and a “grave public danger to all the world’s children.” I suppose I could say something similar about them for their lying to children about evolution and teaching that women’s equality and care for our environment are sins to be warned against. So let’s call that a wash. (Although I would love to have a T-shirt that said, “A grave public danger to all the world’s children,” which would also be a great album name.)

As worked-up as Movieguide gets in their review of The Walker, it’s nothing compared to their recent PR-blitz attacking The Golden Compass, a film they condemn as “Abhorrent.”

Here’s a video clip of Movieguide’s Ted Baehr at a screening of The Golden Compass:

Anyway, there’s the background on Movieguide, the gay-hatin’, crystal teddy bear-lovin’ arbiters of taste and morality. All of which is just to preface the press release the group sent out today (via fax, it’s not on their Web site yet) announcing their “Must See Christmas Films for Families.” Here is their list:

10) The Bells of St. Mary’s
9) A Christmas Story
8) Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
7) Home Alone
6) Meet John Doe
5) Meet Me in St. Louis
4) The Muppet Christmas Carol
3) The Nativity Story
2) Ben-Hur
1) It’s a Wonderful Life

That’s not all that bad. I didn’t expect Movieguide to like many of my favorite holiday classics, such as The Ref, or Die Hard, or even Elf. And while I’m not a fan of Ben-Hur (apart from the classic chariot race), at least they didn’t include The Robe. I’d probably include A Christmas Story*** and A Muppet Christmas Carol on my own Top 10 list. (I love Meet John Doe, too, but I don’t usually think of it as a Christmas movie.) And I enthusiastically share their pick for No. 1 — It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t just one of my favorite holiday movies, but one of my favorite movies, period. It gets my vote for the Great American Novel.

The problem here, however, is that It’s a Wonderful Life shouldn’t be on Movieguide’s list.

They should hate this movie, labeling it “Abhorrent” due to its strident ACapACapACap content.

It might seem strange to label a movie with a banker protagonist as containing “Very strong Anti-capitalism, anti-wealth, politics of envy,” but George Bailey is the wrong kind of banker, the wrong kind of capitalist. The central conflict of the movie and, the film insists, the central conflict of American society is between George Bailey and Old Man Potter. And Old Man Potter is, for the Movieguide folks and their ilk, the right kind of capitalist.

George Bailey’s sin, and the one thing that separates him from Potter, is that he refuses to maximize profit. He runs the Baily Bros. Building & Loan according to a whole host of values that have nothing to do with his fiduciary responsibility to his shareholders, settling instead for some notion of what he regards as a “fairness,” i.e. socialism.

Bailey views himself as some kind of class-warfare champion, self-righteousy trumpeting his superior morality on behalf of the “rabble” who, he says, “do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.” Bailey goes further, insisting that the proletariat also possess positive economic rights to things like housing and employment. Pointy-headed ivory-tower intellectual economists may try to claim that this doesn’t make Bailey a communist — that the Bailey Bros. Building & Loan is actually a model of a humane capitalism that is better able to account for larger social and economic factors than is the predatory brand of corporate capitalism practiced by his rival Potter. But those eggheads are all just envious, anti-wealth commies too. There are no shades of gray here, only shades of pink — Bailey’s refusal to maximize profit makes him a socialist, a communist, even a Stalinist or a Maoist probably.

George Bailey’s Maoism also illustrates why the politics of envy is anti-family. What kind of father keeps his children in a drafty, dilapidated old house just because he’s too morally smug to accept Potter’s perfectly reasonable offer of a higher salary? A bad father. The kind who poses a danger not only to his own children, but also a grave public danger to all the world’s children.

And if all of that is true for George Bailey, it goes double for Ebenezer Scrooge. So no crystal teddy bears for Jimmy Stewart or Michael Caine.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

* Bonus extra credit: Apply the ratings of Movieguide’s glossary to Hamlet.

** Schrader, who also wrote Taxi Driver, deals most directly with his personal history as a Calvinist theology student in his classic film Hardcore. That film — which is where the above clip is actually from — includes a scene in which George C. Scott explains the five points of the Calvinist “TULIP” to a prostitute. Not to be missed. As for The Walker, I’ll be sure to see it because, after all, it is the story of an innocent man embroiled in an international scheme, and I love that story.

*** One of my prized possessions is a signed first edition of In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, the source of many of the stories in A Christmas Story. Flick lives.