The other day a nostalgia trip ending in me considering the inherent dangers faced when trying to make attractive programming about God. How's that for an opening sentence?
For those who haven't heard of it, a big hit in the world of Christian media is a show called 'VeggieTales'. It sounds bizarre and silly, and many ways it definitely is. You haven't really seen it all until you've watched David and Goliath play out as a tiny asparagus fighting a giant pickle. The Israelites order pizza at one point, the sheep that 'Dave' tends to frequently fall over, and the Philistines are all peas that cry ' 'Allo Israelites (they have vaguely French sounding accents). You are pigs and soon we will put apples in your mouths and stick you in our toaster ovens!'. I think that to this day it's still one of the best pieces of openly Christian video to be found.
The show has its own sense of humour, a very original premise (sorry Miranda, this was around way before vegti-pals) and always stays true to its purpose, which is to teach children about Christian morals. It's perfectly pitched for it's target audience but is well-written enough that adults don't feel like watching it with their kids it some sort of endurance test. Actually, I'll admit that many of us still quite enjoy watching it. As it's primarily aimed at children, it does spell out its message somewhat, but it's always careful that the message is uplifting and encourages a positive contribution to the world. Plus, somehow it's slightly less irritating being told 'what we've learned today' when the message is constantly being interrupted by the 'what we have learned' song.
With such fond memories, that left me interested to see how this thespian ratatouille was doing, all these years on. A quick search on Youtube brought up lots of pirated nostalgia, but also an official channel, and the first video I stumbled across from it was the theme song for a production that came out in 2012 called 'The League of Incredible Vegetables'. Once you get past the idea of a crime fighting salad selection, it's actually not a bad song for its target audience. It's (infuriatingly) catchy, creates a tone for the film, has some fun word play ('flex our veggie-mite'...heh), and is performed by an established band. (One of my favourite worship songs is by them, and no, it contains no mention of vegetables). However, there is one element of it that just made my heart break a little. There is only one female character, and her sole selling point is that she's 'looking stylish, yeah she's wearing it well.' Has sexism in the church really only moved onto being on the same level as sexism in much of the secular media industry? Of course it hasn't, but in a world where there is very little Christian media with both budget and talent behind it, it would be very easy to get that impression. The church already attracts a lot of negative attention for its supposed views on women, and this really doesn't help our case.
Children often like to pick a favourite character that is the same gender as them, and as a child I would have not been impressed with my choice. I was never really interested in the way I looked, my parents taught me that there's so much more to the world than that. For children that young it could go one of either two ways. It can isolate them, leaving them to shun what would otherwise be a beneficial film for them to enjoy, or it could convince a young girl that in order to matter in this world the most important thing for her to do is to look good. I know it's only one song from one film but we already have plenty of very popular media that plays out that little lie, the last thing we need is Christians joining in.
I can see the difficulties that Big Idea (the original company behind the show) face. When the show started, almost every edition featured the telling of a Bible story, and there are a lot of men in the Bible, especially the parts often taught to children. However, how hard would it really have been to have at least one female character who's capable of actually doing something interesting.
I don't believe that the makers set out to deliver a sexist message at all - it's not like Bob the tomato is going to pop up at the end, look disgruntled as the 'what we have learned' song plays through, then turn to the kids and say 'and don't forget girls, the only way you can get to where the guys are is by standing round and looking pretty', but that's the impression the song gives. We can make things cool and modern, but we have to watch the message we're portraying. When we start to retell or create our own versions of God's word, we're already putting our own spin on the truth - that's inevitable, many people see their Christian faith differently, hence so many denominations, but we must be careful that our truth doesn't cover up God's truth. It can be incredibly easy to accidentally send out the wrong message when story-telling. Every decision you make (consciously or unconsciously) sends out a message. Who the characters are, how much of their story you tell, who's point of view you focus on, what happens in the narrative, all tell the audience something, and it's much easier to accidentally fire out a message than it is to really touch people with an intentional moral. It's not about brainwashing people into believing one thing or another, it's about saying as Christians that we are going to take responsibility for the media we create.
It's a hurdle to face rather than an excuse to not do it, but I think we need to be extremely careful when we put media out in the name of God. I've said before that good storytelling is powerful, but good storytelling doesn't always send out a good message. If our stories touch upon subjects that transfer into the real world, then we need to think about the effect it will have and address it appropriately. Think about it this way - some of the best stories don't have to tell you what to think all the time, the story speaks for itself. That inevitably means that sometimes people are going to draw things from a narrative, line of dialogue or character that we don't intend. That can often be a really positive thing, but we need to watch what we're unintentionally saying. It may even be that we've drawn up a mirror to a way of thinking that isn't healthy and need to take a look at our own attitudes back in the real world.
As a church I think we should embrace the fun, smart, original telling of God's word, in fact I'm crying out for more of it, but let's do it properly. thoughtfully, prayerfully and yes, let's appeal to certain audiences that are on our heart, but not at the expense of the portrayal of others.
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