CULTURE WARRIOR: DON WILDMON AND THE BATTLE FOR DECENCY

Name: CULTURE WARRIOR: DON WILDMON AND THE BATTLE FOR DECENCY
Item: CULTURE WARRIOR: DON WILDMON AND THE BATTLE FOR DECENCY
Author: Review

"A Call to Action"

Family Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

CULTURE WARRIOR is a fascinating, informative documentary on RedeemTV about the late Christian leader, Don Wildmon. On Christmas Day in 1976, Wildmon watched TV with his family and found obscene content on all of the three major TV networks. He decides to fight against the indecency and anti-Christian agenda that the networks promote. He founded the National Federation for Decency, now the American Family Association. Linking with other Christians from his community and around the nation, he organized rallies and campaigns against media corporations distributing immoral content.

CULTURE WARRIOR is a well-crafted movie. It deftly mixes interviews with footage from decency rallies, snippets from Don Wildmon’s speeches and visual representations of media. All the people interviewed articulate their points with clarity and humor. The sexual content could have been blurred out a little more, or the filmmakers could have settled with just verbal descriptions. However, CULTURE WARRIOR has a strong Christian, biblical worldview. It features many references to God, prayer, the Bible, the Christian view of man, and depictions of biblical passages. MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution advised for older children, including young teenagers.

Content:

(CCC, BBB, V, S, NN, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong Christian, biblical worldview about Don Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, with references to God, prayer, the Bible, the Christian view of man, and fighting against Anti-Christian beliefs and immorality, with several depictions of biblical passages, Wildmon tells people God doesn’t want us to be successful but to be faithful to Him, Wildmon and other Christians encourage peaceful protests in front of 7-Eleven and a movie theater playing THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, a man says the term “Christian worldview,” and Wildmon identifies “humanism” as the movement he fought against;

Foul Language:

No foul language;

Violence:

Brief scenes of a police bending a man’s wrist and picking him up, a shootout, a fistfight, and two images of aborted babies;

Sex:

Many references to sexual immorality but rebuked such as a lesbian kiss on the lips, a heterosexual kiss on the lips in bed, suggestive dialogue occurs in an NBC show, there’s depiction of a sign saying “Pussycat Theatre,” a reference to a sex act on an infant, references to pornography, man looking at girl’s butt while she’s crouched on an NBC show, one man kisses another man on the eye, two clothed women are making suggestive movements in the street, a page on a screenplay states “Jesus resumes lovemaking,” and miscellaneous references to sexual immorality, including homosexuality, but rebuked;

Nudity:

Four instances of blurred nude images of women on magazine covers, sensual image of a man kissing woman on the neck on a magazine cover, image of woman with an unbuttoned blouse showing part of her breast, upper nudity of a boy, several censored nude images of a girl and men, an image of Christ crucified, dialogue about sex-related art, two instances of women posing in photo shoots (one wears only a robe and the others wear bunny suits seen from behind), two women wear bikinis, a woman dances in tight blouse, shot of someone’s butt as the person is walking away in an NBC show, a clothed woman dances suggestively, partial upper male nude image, woman pours water on a man’s crotch area, three instances of upper male nudity, a woman from behind wears a bra, female cleavage of a man dressed as a woman;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

A man wears a dress but it’s rebuked.

More Detail:

CULTURE WARRIOR is a fascinating, informative documentary on RedeemTV about a pastor named Don Wildmon who, after he watches TV with his family and finds obscene content on every channel, decides to fight against the indecency and anti-Christian agenda that networks promote and founds the American Family Association. With the help from his community, he organizes rallies and campaigns against media corporations distributing unacceptable obscene content in entertainment.

The movie opens with Don Wildmon giving a speech about the fateful night on Christmas of 1976 when he, his wife, and his children sat down to watch something on TV since no one had to wake up early the next day. Wildmon recounts how he flipped through the channels of the three major TV networks and all of them had either violence, language or nudity. He founded the National Federation for Decency, which fought for the Christian view of man in Western civilization. Wildmon’s public speeches, campaigns, protests, and rallies let to inevitable opposition from the secular humanist movement.

Wildmon was born in Tippah County, Mississippi. He came from a Christian family, and his father was a pastor while his mother was a schoolteacher. Both parents raised Wildmon and his siblings to be followers of Jesus Christ. Wildmon felt the calling to be a pastor at nine years old. He and his wife met at Blue Mountain College, dated and got married. He pastored in Georgia, worked and went to Emory University while having two children.

After the Christmas TV Incident of 1976, he rallied everyone in his neighborhood to turn off their TVs. He soon left the pastorate and founded the National Federation for Decency (now the American Family Association) in 1977. Wildmon researched how TV networks purposefully made anti-Christian and explicit content, and he contemplated the possibility of boycotting certain companies. He also found out how harmful TV can be on society.

Wildmon realized through more research that the porn industry was a big problematic influence on society not just on TV, but in magazines, as well. Wildmon gives a horrific example of how an infant died, because of her two brothers’ consumption of their mother’s porn magazines. He and other Christians encourage peaceful protests in front of 7-Eleven, which used to carry pornographic magazines. By the way, Dr. Ted Baehr talked with the founder of the 7-Eleven franchise and gave him the economic statistics to convince his Board of Directors to remove pornography. The movie includes footage of people in front of a movie theater playing THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHIRST, a notoriously blasphemous movie that Wildon and MOVIEGUIDE® protested.

The documentary shows how Wildmon faced attacks, threats and lawsuits against him that got him discouraged at times, but he never backed down. In the movie, Wildmon identities secular humanism as the source of the opposition arrayed against Christianity. He says it was the secular humanist movement that declared war against Christianity, biblical values and decency.

Meanwhile, the porn industry continued to push its agenda through obscene art funded by state and federal governments. Some of the art was even blasphemous, such as the infamous government-funded “sculpture” titled “Piss Christ,” where an image of Jesus Christ was immersed in urine. Wildmon sent pictures to the United States Congress to put an end to such funding.

CULTURE WARRIOR is a well-crafted movie. It mixes interviews with footage from decency rallies, snippets from Don Wildmon’s speeches and visual representations of media. All the people interviewed articulate their points with clarity and humor. However, the movie could have blurred out the sexual content a little more, or the filmmakers could have settled for just having tasteful verbal descriptions.

CULTURE WARRIOR has a strong Christian, biblical worldview. It features many references to God, prayer, the Bible, the Christian view of man, depictions of biblical passages, and to Christians fighting against the humanist movement. At one point, Wildmon tells people that God doesn’t want His followers to be successful, but to be faithful to Him.

Dr. Ted Beahr, founder, publisher and executive producer of MOVIEGUIDE®, www.moviegudie.org and MOVIEGUIDE® TV on YouTube, fought alongside the elder Wildmon for decency on TV and in the movies. “Don had an ability to not just target the exact right problem but he also had the ability to galvanize people,” Dr. Baehr says.

Because of the sexual references in CULTURE WARRIOR, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children, including young teenagers, and sensitive adults. However, CULTURE WARRIOR is a good movie that parents can watch with their older teenagers to be better informed about the current culture and teach them to do God’s will when consuming media. It also provides a great point of departure to begin the pornography conversation with teenagers.