FAMILY
MOVIES WITH
TRADITIONAL
MORAL VALUES
MADE
A BIG HIT WITH AUDIENCES IN 2001
A study of the top 10 movies at the domestic
box office in 2001 shows that moviegoers last year sought out family-oriented
movies with traditional moral values.
By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®
Friday, April 5, 2002
HOLLYWOOD, CALIF. (ANS) (ANS) -- A content analysis of the top 10 movies by the Christian Film & Television Commission ministry (CFTVC) reveals not only that the top three movies of the year were rated G or PG, but also that 70 percent of the top 10 had at least some Christian and/or redemptive content in them, but 60 percent of the top 10 actually had a solid moral or Christian worldview in them, based on CFTVC's traditional view of the Bible.
Furthermore, 90 percent of the top 10 movies had at least some moral, redemptive and/or Christian content in them. Also, 80 percent of the top 10 movies at the domestic box office had no sex scenes and no sexual immorality in them! Finally, none of the top 10 movies in 2001 had any excessive substance abuse in them.
In contrast to these percentages, of all the 266 theatrical movies reviewed by CFTVC in 2001, only 53 percent had at least some moral and/or biblical content in them, only 37 percent had at least Christian and/or redemptive content in them and 76 percent had at least some sexual content in them.
“These statistics clearly show that it pays to put family-friendly, moral, biblical, and Christian content in movies,” said Dr. Ted Baehr, chairman and founder of CFTVC and publisher and editor in chief of MOVIEGUIDE®.
Dr. Baehr presented these figures – and many more – to more than 150 studio executives at CFTVC’s 10th Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry, held recently in Los Angeles.
"Surprisingly, this has been a wonderful year for moral, family movies," said Dr. Baehr's associate Dr. Tom Snyder, editor of MOVIEGUIDE®, "despite all the hoopla about such terrible popular movies as AMERICAN PIE 2, HANNIBAL and PLANET OF THE APES.
"Our findings this year, however, are not
all that unusual," Snyder added. "We generally find that, with a few major
exceptions, moviegoers here and around the world tend to gravitate toward
movies that are clean, moral and sometimes even explicitly Christian. This
becomes especially clear when you look at the movies which lead the home
video charts. For example, in 2000, 90 percent of the top ten home video
sales and rentals had moral, redemptive and/or Christian elements playing
a major role in the premise and 60 percent were rated G or PG. In 2001,
80 percent of the Top 10 Home Video Sales and Rentals had moral, biblical,
redemptive, and/or Christian elements in them. In fact, four of the top
five home video sales and rentals in 2001 were award winners at our Annual
MOVIEGUIDE® Awards Gala, including this year’s SHREK and PEARL HARBOR
and 2000’s REMEMBER THE TITANS."
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Call (805) 383-2000 or (770) 825-0084 for
more information or to get all the statistics from Dr. Baehr’s 2002 Report
to the Entertainment Industry.
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NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr: For more information
from a Christian perspective, order the latest MOVIEGUIDE® magazine
by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org.
MOVIEGUIDE® is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing
parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives
and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do
best at the box office year in and year out.
MOVIEGUIDE® now offers an online subscription
to its magazine version, at www.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes
out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that
help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers. MOVIEGUIDE®
also regularly broadcasts several international TV and radio programs hosted
by Dr. Baehr. Also, if you want to train your family to be media-wise,
call 1-800-899-6684 in North America to order the book, video or audio
version of THE MEDIA-WISE! FAMILY, Dr. Ted Baehr's latest book. ©
baehr, 2001
** You may use this story with proper attribution.
ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126,
Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
E-mail: assistcomm@cs.com, Web Site: www.assist-ministries.com
