Why Kristoffer Polaha Believes Hollywood Should Stop Producing Immoral Movies
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actor Kristoffer Polaha believes it is time for Hollywood to promote integrity and goodness rather than sin.
“I think it is inspiring and ennobling to see someone have integrity, and to see someone fight for love, and to see somebody who’s true and true-hearted and what does that look like? We need role models,” Polaha told the Christian Post.
“I’m in Hollywood, and I love Hollywood, and I think that Hollywood is doing its best job to be representative as it can, and sometimes it feels heavy-handed and it misses the mark,” he continued.
“It’s almost like we’re telling so many stories that we’re forgetting to tell the stories that are sort of a basic, fundamental.”
Audiences seem to agree with this sentiment, as movies that push immoral or cynical content have tended to flop in recent years. This is especially true among movies aimed at family audiences, as Movieguide® previously reported.
In Polaha’s upcoming sci-fi movie, THE SHIFT, his character, Kevin, is given the power to travel through multiverses, allowing him to live life without repercussions for his actions. Rather than glorify sinful actions that have no consequences—the direction that many in Hollywood might take—THE SHIFT follows Kevin’s desire to avoid becoming that person.
“The world is broken and I think left to our own devices, if you take the hall pass and do what you want, it becomes very easy to start to feed your own nature because we are full of pride, we are full of lust, we are full of greed,” he explained.
“There’s a pretty clear line of this idea of good and evil and dancing with the devil,” Polaha said. “There’s this weird appeal and there’s this weird fantasy element of like, ‘Well, I’m doing so good on my own, but I do want to see that little window.”
Polaha noted that his window is something that Hollywood has long explored, to the detriment of society. Actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean, known for playing sympathetic bad boys, are examples of the industry “embrac[ing] that fleshy, raw and even Satanic element of life.”
The actor believes glorifying that type of person has influenced much of the violence that plagues the world today.
“I think now the world is caught up, life has imitated art,” he explained. “I think we’ve arrived in culture, where, really, our real life is far more egregious than anything we will ever be allowed to put on screen. When you think about sex trafficking, mass shootings, we can go as dark was we want to go. You can’t write the things that are happening in the world.”
He believes it is now time for Hollywood to influence the world for good rather than continuing to promote immorality and evil.
“Hollywood’s job [is] to start showing the fantasy of what it looks like to have integrity, the fantasy of what it looks like to have faith, the fantasy of [what] it looks like to be a good man and a good woman,” Polaha said.
“Let’s start showing people what it looks like to be tested and still have faith, and still be true to your faith, and still have integrity, and still have honesty, what does that look like?” he added.
THE SHIFT is set to release in January of next year.
Movieguide® previously reported on THE SHIFT:
Angel Studios, the studio behind THE CHOSEN, has started filming their first original theatrical release, a Sci-Fi movie called THE SHIFT.
“[THE SHIFT is] a story about a guy’s harrowing journey through the multiverse back to what matters most to him, and the formidable adversary he battles at every turn,” writer and director Brock Heasley shared.
THE SHIFT will deal with life’s most significant questions through characters who follow biblical truth.
The story takes many cues from the book of Job, as the main character, Kevin, will fight to hold onto hope in the face of crushing despair. Through this, Angel Studios hopes to follow C.S. Lewis’s example by creating a truth-affirming story that is intriguing to both Christian and non-Christian audiences.
- Content: +4Share:
- Content: +4