Baehr-Faced Humbug

Ted Baehr casts an inevitably prudish eye over the history of American cinema, in a interview at WorldNetDaily:

Baehr said American movies were morally bankrupt prior to 1933, and the Protestant Film Commission, along with the Roman Catholic Legion of Decency, cleaned up the industry. However, the Protestant Film Commission shut down in 1966.

“The Baptists pulled their funding, and within three years, we went from ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ to the first sex and Satanism film and from ‘The Sound of Music’ to the first ‘X’-rated movie,” he said.

Baehr also provides a bit of interesting background: apparently, his “Christian Film & Television Commission” holds all the files of the old Protestant Film Office, donated by George Heimrich, and he received funding from none other than Sir John Templeton.

And as it’s Baehr, it’s not long before a massive humbug is unwrapped:

“In the old days, they would say that you could have violence, but you couldn’t have it in such a way that a susceptible youth would want to copy the violence,” he said. “The question is, how do you do it? Today we seem to be so simplistic that we can’t figure that out. The violence in ‘The Passion of the Christ’ is such that nobody will be attracted to being a Roman centurion whipping Christ.”

On the other hand, violence in movies such as Warner Brothers’ “Watchmen” is meant to be exciting and entertaining.

Unlike, of course, the films of Chuck Norris, whom Baehr continually commends and to whom he has given an award:

norrisandguns1

One Response

  1. […] that one of the “8,000 ministers” appears to be none other than Ted Baehr, of “Movieguide” fame (and one of Joseph Farah’s ”favorite Christian cultural warriors”); […]

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