Don’t Like Hollywood Trash? Here’s How to Make a Difference in the Entertainment Industry
By Movieguide® Staff
Movieguide®’s Movies That Inspire debuts on The REELZ Channel on Easter Sunday to honor the very best movies in the last year. While COVID decimated the box office, movies and television shows with uplifting content still found a way to triumph. Join Movieguide® Publisher Dr. Ted Baehr and Movieguide® TV Host Evy Baehr Carroll as they reflect on programs including THE CROODS: A NEW AGE, GREYHOUND, BLUE BLOODS, NCIS, and more!
Movieguide® sat down with Carroll to discuss the importance of Movieguide®’s Movies That Inspire, as well as media discernment for your family. Check it out!
Movieguide®: Tell me about Movieguide®’s Movies That Inspire.
Evy: Movieguide®’s Movies That Inspire goes behind the scenes of the movies of 2020 that are the best movies to inspire your family and to inspire discerning adults. These movies will encourage you in your work and every day life. We also talks about the best performances that have helped people come closer to God. Really, all these movies help us draw closer to God, and they have faith elements to them which is why we’re honoring them. My father and I host. He founded Movieguide® 40 years ago, and has worked in Hollywood to redeem the entertainment industry.
MG: What makes the Movieguide® Awards different from other major Hollywood award shows?
Evy: What the Movieguide® Awards does–and we’re on our 29th year–is we encourage the good in movies and we champion movies that have faith and values. These can be big box office movies like Marvel movies and Disney movies and stuff like that, but we’re encouraging the good themes that are in those movies. Many times, the Oscars or the Golden Globes emphasize movies that are very small niche or independent movies that have a depressing outlook on life with depressing humanist worldviews. But the movies we honor inspire you and make you feel good, and those movies often contain faith elements, and we want to promote that in the entertainment industry.
MG: Why does Movieguide® focus on uplifting content?
Evy: Our whole goal is to be able to help the public make wise media choices and to promote the good in movies. If we as the audience choose good movies and choose movies with more positive messages, then they’ll do better at the box office, then Hollywood will make more movies like that instead of making movies that are anti-God or against our beliefs or core values in this world.
MG: What does Movieguide®’s research show about us about box office success?
Evy: Movies with less cursing, with less nudity, with less violence do better at the box office because if you can sell tickets for a family of four to a positive movie, that’s much more money than selling a ticket to one person to an R-rated movie. It’s clear these cleaner movies do better. What we’ve seen since starting Movieguide® 40 years ago is that there’s far more content out now than ever, and 80% of movie content actually has redeeming content. These are movies for families or even movies for mature audiences that have biblical worldviews. In our Report to the Entertainment Industry, year after year, we’ve been able to calculate how if you put this many curse words in a movie, this is how well it will do at the box office. It’s all very statistical, and we’ve been able to present that to the entertainment industry and help them make more movies with less offensive content.
MG: Why do we need family-friendly movies?
Evy: There are 160 million Christians in the United States who go to church every week. We want our values represented in the media. There’s a big audience out there who can vote with their dollars when they go to the theaters. I personally have two children, and I’m always concerned about what kind of content they’re seeing. We’ve now found that children consume media more than eight or nine hours a day, and we need to be aware of what kind of content they’re watching. That’s why it’s great to have family content that is safe for our children, that’s uplifting and can promote Christian values.
MG: How can Christians make a difference in Hollywood?
Evy: Christians can make a difference in the Hollywood by choosing the good and rejecting the bad. By choosing the movies that are good and watching those, it’s just like as if you were going to the ballot and turning in your ballot and saying, I want to support the good by watching that and clicking it on. Then, Hollywood will make more movies with positive content because Hollywood is actually a business, and it’s in the business of making money. When you see positive movies, you show the decision makers that faith content makes more money, and you’re telling the industry that we want clean content that doesn’t offend our faith.
MG: What are some of the values you want to see in movies for your children?
Evy: I want to see movies that promote a healthy parent relationship with the child and the child is respecting their parents. I want to see children on screen having biblical worldviews and demonstrating redeeming characteristics like caring for one another, loving one another, sacrificing for each other.
MG: How have you personally seen the industry changed through Movieguide®’s work?
Evy: For the last 10 years I’ve been able to work with my father and my brother at Movieguide®, and I watch several movies a week. In the last decade, we’ve seen more good, wholesome movies with great themes in them. It makes me feel so good that I don’t have to sit there and watch stuff that’s depressing and just brings you down. Instead, I’ve seen more and more movies that are uplifting with positive outlooks on life, and I think that’s a direct result of the value of our research.
Join Carroll and her father, Dr. Ted Baehr, this Easter Sunday at 4 p.m. on The REELZ Channel for Movieguide®’s Movies That Inspire!
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
- Content: +2Share:
- Content: +1