It’s been interesting to read the comment string beneath Kevin Simpson’s post last week (“Advice From My Wife (Sort of Like Plugged In“). Little did Kev know that it would throw the doors open for a critique of all things Plugged In.
As always, we’re so appreciative of our readers—your courtesy, your thoughtfulness and your willingness to engage with all manner of issues. (Though I admit I was personally pretty bummed to learn that being compared to Weird Al Yankovic is not necessarily meant as a compliment. I’ll have to re-evaluate my love for Polka Party now.)
In your comments, I noticed a fairly consistent (and perhaps not altogether surprising) theme: Some of you think we’re awfully judgmental.
One of my favorite responses came from a reader who coined the term “Anonymi” (which I love). And he or she (very nicely) told us that, sometimes, it can feel as if we’re even questioning someone’s faith based on their entertainment choices.
In part, the comment read:
When you have Christian friends, whose hearts and faith you admire very, very much, who do approve of [something that Plugged In doesn’t], it can be very troubling to see [their faith dismissed] out-of-hand on the basis of their opinion of a single film (for instance). Or at least it is for me.
I was really happy that this reader, and others, wrote as they did. Plugged In digs honesty. I dig honesty. But (being honest in return) honesty isn’t always easy to hear or read. And I can struggle mightily with how to balance it all, both from the receiving end and the giving. See, I hate the feeling of being judged. I absolutely despise it, and I can’t tell you how much I’ve been hurt over the years by even well-intentioned comments that have come across as judgment.
We all know that morality is important, but how do we get a good grasp on Jesus’ knack for dispensing both truth and grace? How did He hold on tight to the one while still embracing us as his bride, and showering us with the other?
And so, in the context of writing reviews for Plugged In, let’s all agree that balance can be really tricky. See, a big part of being an entertainment critic is, well, critiquing entertainment. And in the context of a Christian ministry like Plugged In, that means our critiques must go beyond the artistic value of a given film. On some level, we have to measure the heart of a given movie—its plusses and minuses, its strengths and weaknesses.
How, then, can we say, “This movie has some problems” without transitioning into, “If you go see this movie, you have some problems … WITH YOUR LORD AND SAVIOR!”? How can we best come alongside you in a spirit of grace, and yet drive home a critical point we all feel so fervently—that what we watch matters?
With all that in mind, I wanted to walk through our process a little bit—for my own benefit, as much as yours. You might even consider this an addendum to the “It’s Not Just a Movie” blog series we ran last year.
First, let’s start with the obvious: How we react to movies—or any sort of entertainment—is intensely personal.
Some folks, I think, believe that we Plugged In types share the same brain and trade it over our cubicle walls. We shake our heads angrily at the very same things. We invariably all weep in unison during the intro to Up.
But that’s not really what happens. Oh, we share certain commonalities, of course—just as people on the same baseball team share the same general goals. But we react to movies in starkly different ways, just as you do. We’re struck by different things, we’re moved by different scenes. And if two or more of us have seen a given flick, we’re apt to have, um, energetic conversations about it. The Hunger Games, Moonrise Kingdom, Amour and a dozen other movies have stirred lots of discussion and even controversy here. I campaigned hard, for instance, to slide Life of Pi into our “Diamonds in the Rough” category for our first Plugged In Movie Awards. I found much to love in the movie. Others on our team, not so much.
So when we hear about people who were profoundly moved by a piece of cinema that didn’t affect any of us in that way, we aren’t surprised much at all. We’ve all been moved in different ways. That’s the power of story: Our own pasts and predilections make them purely personal experiences.
That’s one of the reasons we include bylines on all our movie reviews. We understand that, as consistent as we try to be, there’s inherently an element of subjectivity that comes into play. We can’t wholly eliminate our own opinions from what we write. Nor do I think most of you would want us to.
But while what moves us differs from person to person, the blanket of morality we’re all under does not. Plugged In does not share a brain. But we do share a voice, and there’s an important reason for that. Morality is a constant. We’re all subject to the same God. As Christians, we believe that God cares about what we do—how we treat other people, how we act, what we say.
And how could God’s care for us not extend into the realm of entertainment?
For more than 20 years, Plugged In has been about one thing: reminding our readers (and listeners and viewers) that entertainment matters—and the content in our entertainment can shape us in myriad ways, both good and bad. We believe that God would like us to guard our hearts—to, as Paul encourages us to do in Ephesians, “be imitators of God … as dearly loved children.”
We can’t truly imitate God, of course—not perfectly. Our entertainment can’t be perfect, either, not if we’re going to partake at all of what the world offers in this arena. But we should always remind ourselves that we’re called to higher standards. And Plugged In believes, collectively, that our entertainment is not exempted from those standards.
Let’s go back to Life of Pi. I’ve already said what I thought about the movie. But when I wrote the review for it, I wasn’t writing a personal essay. I was writing for you—all of you—who’ve grown to value Plugged In’s perspective, and the standards it has adhered to and reaffirmed year after year. Examining Life of Pi through that Plugged In lens, we can objectively see that it is far from a perfect movie. It’s sometimes violent and scary and spiritually confused. Could it even rock someone’s faith? Of course it could. That’s what well-made movies are designed to do: to move us, to tap into and even change the way we think and feel.
In my review I think I was able to blend my personal take with Plugged In’s consistent voice without shortchanging either. Both reflect me. I’m not mitigating my personal take on the movie to admit the thing has problems. The thing does have problems. And I feel strongly, both personally and professionally, that you should be made aware of them.
Do we always write it exactly right? No. In my case, maybe my quirky, sometimes snide sense of humor can cause me to sound more dismissive than I should. But I also think that sometimes readers can react pretty vehemently when we critique a favorite piece of their entertainment puzzle—perhaps subconsciously skipping over some of the good things we’ve said about that piece as they do so.
And sometimes there’s simply inherent friction in what we do, with the way we engage with you as the reader as we simultaneously interact with the powerful stories we’re seeing. Plugged In is tasked with reminding us all (we reviewers included) that our entertainment culture is imperfect and fallen—just as we are. And we’re to remind people that God means for us to reach higher than that. That’s not to minimize all the good stuff we find in our movies and music and games (and, really, there is some pretty good stuff). We just want to engage more deeply, with honesty and integrity … as you are already engaging here.
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