AMC Theatres Gave Christians a Black Eye
Monday, March 01, 2004
These movie people are pretty smart. We’re a captive audience. Unless we’re in line buying their overpriced popcorn or Junior Mints, we’re already sitting in their seats, facing their screen. Frankly, I can see why they’d like to make an extra buck with a few commercial messages between previews. Who can blame ‘em?
Enter Mel Gibson. He directed The Passion of the Christ, an historic movie that’s been transforming lives across America.
Not surprisingly, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, an association of 5,700 Texas Baptist churches, wanted to capitalize on the enormous publicity surrounding The Passion. So they produced a 30-second movie screen ad to coincide with the opening.
A brilliant move.
According to a transcript of the original ad, it opens with a man saying, “You want to see the most scandalous story ever?” Then, these words flash on the screen: “Betrayal. Sin. Adultery. Greed. Envy. Weakness. Poverty. Torture. Murder. Redemption.” The ad ends with the message, “Now playing at a Baptist church near you” above a logo for Baptist General Convention of Texas.
For $40,000, their hope was to run that ad on 350 movie screens throughout Texas for an entire month. To their credit, Regal Cinemas, said yes without blinking an eye.
But, to their utter shame, AMC Theaters began gagging and hissing, like a 12-year-old cat on an overdue hairball. Rick King, spokescat for AMC Entertainment, Inc., said, “Screen advertising is a pretty sensitive area, and we have a pretty tight set of guidelines for what we will place on our screens and what we won’t.”
Guidelines? According to Becky Bridges, spokeswoman for the Texas Baptist group, AMC Theaters does not allow a movie screen ad to mention Jesus, the Bible or use any religious symbols. So far, so good. The Baptists passed that absurd movie smell test.
But Bridges said that AMC Theaters was “very vague about why” it rejected the ad, with officials describing it as “too dark” and “too Christian.”
Too dark? This is a joke, right? Since when does the movie industry, which makes millions on slasher movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, have a problem with something because it’s “too dark”?
Oh, but it gets more bizarre. “In general terms, we don’t allow any kind of negativity,” King said. AMC balked over the words “murder,” “torture,” and “adultery.”
Let me get this straight. AMC objects to the simple words “murder” and “torture” in a 30-second movie screen ad, but they have no problem in profiting from the actual bloody murder and torture depicted in two-hour long slasher films? Village Voice film critic R.J. Smith called Kill Bill, “probably the most violent movie ever made by an American studio.”
In a climatic scene, Black Mamba, played by Uma Thurman, takes on 88 assailants, all of whom end up dead, dying or (if they’re very lucky) merely dismembered. In other words, Kill Bill makes Pulp Fiction look like a Sunday School lesson.
I wonder if Mr. King of AMC can spell hypocrisy?
Bridges even offered to replace the words “adultery,” “torture” and “murder” with the words “fear,” “anger” and “deceit.” But that still didn’t appease the American Atheist-like AMC Theaters.
It wasn’t until a day after the Associated Press ran a nationwide story about the ad dispute that AMC Theaters decided they had better put out this public-relations-nightmare fire.
Miracle of miracles, they accepted the proposed compromise by the Texas Baptist group which had been sitting on their desk collecting dust. Ah yes, the power of the press.
Rick King said AMC Theaters was “very concerned that this was being perceived as an unfriendly message from AMC to the Baptist community. That’s certainly not reflective of our posture and certainly not what we intended to convey.”
Perceived as an unfriendly message? Come on now. It was an unfriendly message! If it talks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck!
Mr. King, you must think the average Christian is pretty stupid. The real reason why you objected to the Texas Baptist ad had nothing to do with the three little words which you changed, but that the ad was just “too Christian.” Sadly, religious bigotry seems to be alive and well in the boardroom of AMC Theaters.
TAKE A STAND ACTION STEPS:
1. To object to AMC Theaters’ original decision not to run the 30-second long Texas Baptist movie screen ad, contact: Chairman, President, and CEO: Peter C. Brown, AMC Entertainment, Inc., 920 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64105-2017, (816) 221-4000, ext. 633. You can leave a message 24 hours a day. Or fax Mr. Brown at (816) 480-4617.
2. To thank Regal Cinemas for supporting Christians, contact: President and Chief Executive Officer, Kurt C. Hall, Regal CineMedia, 9110 East Nichols Avenue, Suite 200, Centennial, CO 80112. (303) 792-3600.
3. If you don’t already subscribe to my daily e-mail alert about upcoming guests, newsmaker interviews and practical ways you can make a difference for the Lord, join the 3,600 who do and go to my website www.TakeAStand.net.
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