Issue 18 The Political IssueBlog | Films to preach about: Our stories are political
Films to preach about: Our stories are political
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 02.03.19
Please use the ideas and insight here in your own preaching and ministry, read on and become a culture vulture preacher. See the suggestions for film club study too.
The legacy of the first ever blockbuster can’t be disentangled from its politics. DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) pioneered many filmmaking techniques and established the foundations of screen storytelling as we know it. But more than a century on, it’s considered the most racist film ever made. With its mangling of history to favour the Confederate cause, glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, and horrifying racial stereotypes, Birth of a Nation marked an inauspicious beginning for cinema’s place in the political conversation. Thankfully a lot has changed since then. Today Hollywood attracts more flak for being a liberal bubble than for being regressive. A-List stars march against Donald Trump, who tweets about the ‘Lowest-rated Oscars in HISTORY’ and the ‘overrated’ Meryl Streep. His rhetoric implies that popular cinema is propaganda for the other side – but of course, it isn’t quite so simple.
