Media and Meaning

At this writing an issue of Forbes magazine that focuses on business, freedom, economics and wealth has carried a major article on the television series of ten episodes entitled The Bible.  The series has been a strong success as measured by the number of viewers tuning into it.  This is taken by the industry as the measure of success, and of the taste of the public for later copycat programming by others seeking similar success.  In the final evaluation the measure is made on the costs of production as related to the income the finished production registers for those producing and distributing the program product.  The economics of programs following some theme related to the Bible offer fabulous profits for those creating and distributing the titles. The cost of producing Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004 was budgeted at $30 million and has to this date grossed $610 million.  Scrolling back over the decades, the Forbes article noted the successes of Quo Vadis in 1951, Ben Hur in 1959, and Barabbas in 1962. 

The move of America to current secularism after 1960 is offered as reason for the drop off of the genre.  That is too simplistic explanation, even if the secular spirit was growing.  One of the most famous films of the silent era was a film on a biblical theme, and the genre faded, then renewed, then faded, and may again be renewed.  The same pattern applies to the Western Genre on the silent screen, to the talkies through the hero cowboys: Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, John Wayne and James Stewart with a score of other leading actors with their barmaid and sheriff friends.  With the close of the Ponderosa television series in the 1970s we haven’t seen many new western productions.  High Noon starring Gary Cooper, The Magnificent Seven with Yul Bryner and Steve McQueen, and Lonesome Dove with Robert Duvall, in 1990, were popular winners.  Neither the Bible nor Western themes faded out in films.  Many of the oldies, especially John Wayne’s, are repeated in television series each year.  The rise of the movies based on myths that are responsive to the illusions possible in the machinations of the computer age, the movies have moved out of life to a dream context, achieved most effectively by Steven Spielberg.  We wait to see what’s next.  The Bible just completed in television programming has an added factor that is included in that the producers, Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey believe in the story of the Bible, and are publicly open about their passion for it.  Downey became well known and well liked as the star in the TV program series, Touched by an Angel.  She is well cast in religious contexts.  Her voice and mien seem to fit the roles without syrupy or false impression of faith.  Her voice is not strident to the ear.  Lower registers are preferred.

Decades ago I read: Our Movie-made Children.  It deplored the negative affect it had on persons viewing the silver screen.  It came out during the days when evangelical Christians shunned movie going as something somewhat carnal, or likely to influence persons to fall into bad habits (a social problem).  That influence, according to serious literature, was admitted as possibility, but carried also the belief that the appeal, even when legal censors dictated practices, was no greater than the general culture would exude on persons attentive to it.  The industry, by small increments very slowly eroded some of the moral and social limitations imposed.  For example, the limitations related to language were challenged with Rhett Butler’s last line in Gone With The Wind: Frankly my dear I don’t give a d–n.  After review it was decided that it was important to the film so was permitted by the censors.  The camel’s head was in the tent.  The camel has now is almost fully entered.  The analyst is hard pressed to say whether the genre causes social change or reflects it.  There appears to be sufficient evidence that both apply, with the accentuation an influence for continuation of cultural patterns or resistance.  On the introduction of the new millennium the efforts of leaders in health have so influenced the public about the dangers of smoking tobacco that few productions include smoking in any part of a production.  During one period directors felt they had to have scenes that included the introduction of a cigarette, or the swirling smoke that surrounded the script words, or the stamping out the residue of the spent weed.  In one scene Tony Curtis (white man) ripped off the end of a cigarette that had touched the lips of Sidney Portier (man of color) so to show racial prejudice.