From the Teen Mania message board:
The name of this forum shouldn't be "Aftershock." It should probably instead be "Backfire." Which is what Teen Mania and all of you who've gone foaming at the mouth for the past few months about how wonderful this film was going to be are going to have to face.
What does it mean when Teen Mania has produced materials designed to use what is essentially a pornographic snuff film as a recruitment tool? Yes. A pornographic snuff film. It was clear to me from seeing the 4 minute preview months ago that this is what it would be, and that critics would eventually be saying exactly that; and yesterday that's what they started saying.
Just go and read, for just one example, Andrew Sullivan's review. Or Leon Wieseltier's review in The New Republic, appropriately titled, "The Worship of Blood." Or just the comments of a random blogger.
I've known for a long time that at its core, evangelical Christianity provides a convenient outlet for the deep pathologies of certain people, and Teen Mania has provided obvious clues of this to me in its language and imagery for years. Now, the whole planet gets to understand in a very graphic way that, basically, that there are many Christians who think its just normal and OK to use a pornographic snuff film as a recruitment tool, including for children and teenagers! Far from being an effective tool for recruitment, it's an effective repellant. Isn't that just wonderful?
Posted by Mike Doughney at February 27, 2004 03:56 AM | TrackBack