Jesus Camp (NRR)
jlee
1,539 Posts
I suspect this movie/documentary has been brought up before on the Strut, but i couldn't find it using the search...anyway, i saw this flick last night and i was MESMERIZED!!!! 
Any of you folks seen it?I grew up in the bible belt, so i have come across many a religious person, but DAMN, that shit was next level. I was more amazed than anything about how much freedom the directors had to make that movie. Also, that movie made me really cringe at the realization of how parents can truly mold a kids brainwaves into whatever they choose. Kinda makes me scared to be a parent.And given the latest news about Ted Haggard, it was funny to see dude in action knowing the whole time is he was getting rim jobs from Mike Jones (who). Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that church the day after he was exposed....edit:here's the trailer.
Any of you folks seen it?I grew up in the bible belt, so i have come across many a religious person, but DAMN, that shit was next level. I was more amazed than anything about how much freedom the directors had to make that movie. Also, that movie made me really cringe at the realization of how parents can truly mold a kids brainwaves into whatever they choose. Kinda makes me scared to be a parent.And given the latest news about Ted Haggard, it was funny to see dude in action knowing the whole time is he was getting rim jobs from Mike Jones (who). Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that church the day after he was exposed....edit:here's the trailer.
Comments
What, training Christian kid soldiers for a counter-jihad doesn't make your day???
haha
I haven't seen this one yet, but am interested. Is it just documentation or is it more expose`?
How so?
Yeah, I didn't get that sense at all. I thought it was done pretty well--presented very matter-of-factly. Even Becky Fisher herself agreed with the how her camp was presented (the only guy who was upset with his portrayal was Ted Haggard...of course, that could've just been the meth talking).
see at first that caught me off guard. i figured "this chick has to know that the average viewer is gonna think she is a loon", but towards the end she seemed to revel in the idea that the images would 'shock all those liberals'
btw, who was that Radio commentator dude in the movie. I couldn't get a good bead on him (was he a religious talk show dude who was just scarred of evangelicals, or just a political commentator?). either way, he seemed to be of pretty sound mind.
My main gripe was with the bunch of "Hey, that's crazy!" quips from the annoying Air America dude who was propped up as some 'token reasonable liberal christian'. That and things like shots of chain restaurants and suburbia with lame THE HORROR music over it.
For me, it would've been so much more effective by taking a more, I donno, documentarian feel to it. Instead of just exposing the radical extremist faith for what it is, it felt like the filmmakers wanted to paint an ugly, backward picture for the entire midwest and working class people with faith. I probably would've thought the film was fine if they got rid of the radio host, since that's what put it too over-the-top for me.
I think what you were seeing in Becky Fisher was the absolute conviction that she is right and is doing the right thing with her camp. Like, she's intent on shocking because people need to be shocked out of their complacency to take up arms in the culture war. Something like that.
The radio dude was Mike Papantonio. He had a show on Air America radio that I never listened to because political talk radio makes me want to stab my eardrums with corkscrews. But his deal is that he's a liberal Catholic, so for his radio show, the idea is that he's the more rational counterpart to the Religious Crazies faction of the GOP on some "you don't have to be a far-right-wing crazy in order to be devout" steez.
I can see where you're coming from, although I disagree with you. I thought the radio host was a decent way to balance things out. He represents other christian folk who aren't as extreme as the evangical nutjobs, which the film focuses on. And by doing so, there is a counter-motif in the narrative which eliminates any direct input from the film-makers. They let real people play it out. Of course they control the editing, but I thought it was pretty reasonable.
And if there wasn't any difference between Westboro and any run-of-the-mill New Life evangelical church, I'd agree he'd be an okay choice. As is, it just came off as something akin to a built-in "I can't be racist, I have a black friend!" defense.
Well, of course it'd be difficult to find a counter angle that everyone would be ok with. I, at least, just saw dude as a oppositional representative, not the oppositional representative. He was also probably chosen due to his ability to host a playground for the two "groups" to argue.
Let me note though, that I'm not from the US so if there's some stigma attached to the guy, I wouldn't know of it.
can anyone tell me what this movie is going to tell that i couldn't get from the trailer?
depending on how high your hopes are, perhaps not much.
but, i personally was more interested in how young the kids were being indoctrinated into the evangelical world. the good majority of kids in this film were likely under 12 years old, but all came across sounding like they had convictions that ran deeper than people who were 3 times their age. as mentioned in my first post, that was the really mesmerizing thing for me, seeing how adults basically can brainwash kids to believe whatever they believe.