“We have no ‘anti-evangelical’ agenda. We have an anti-mediocrity agenda.” So says my colleague Jeffrey Overstreet at the Looking Closer Journal, where he has been posting his own two bits about the tempest-in-a-teapot over my review of The Last Sin Eater.
I agree entirely. And I would go even further and say that I actually support the making of books and films that are made with an eye towards the evangelical or Christian market.
If it seems like Christian film critics complain about mediocrity in Christian films much of the time, it is probably because niche markets, by their very nature, often tempt filmmakers to put identity politics and self-congratulation ahead of good artistry — so the books and films and albums produced for these markets will often let the artistry slide.
As I was discussing with my friend Magnus last night, we see this all the time in self-consciously Canadian films; witness the awful, if lucrative, spectacles that were Men with Brooms (2002) or Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006). Gay friends of mine have made similar complaints about films that cater to the gay niche audience.
But there can be benefits to niche markets, too. One of my favorite singer-songwriters is Terry Scott Taylor, and while he has had no small number of difficulties with the “contemporary Christian music” market and its constraints, it is also difficult to imagine that he could have flourished as much as he has anywhere else.
Similarly, Steve Taylor (no relation to Terry) became so frustrated with the Christian market that he started a secular band in the early 1990s — but he found the secular market just as frustrating, and possibly more so. While he did go on to produce Sixpence None the Richer’s fantastically successful self-titled album — the one with ‘Kiss Me’ — he did so as the head of a Christian record label, and he has since begun making challenging Christian films, as well. So at this point, it may be possible to say that he has flourished much more within the Christian niche than outside it.
So, I’ve got no problem with niches. It’s ghettos that worry me — especially when they encourage us to lower our standards.
Incidentally, Jeffrey Overstreet himself is in a situation not unlike that of the FoxFaith filmmakers. He has a novel coming out later this year via WaterBrook Press, a Christian publishing imprint that is owned by Random House — just as FoxFaith is owned by 20th Century Fox, and Provident Films is owned by Sony, etc., etc.
And of course, he and I both write film reviews for a website that draws the bulk of its readership from our fellow Christians.
So obviously, we cannot be against niches, per se. We just don’t see any reason to write as though the world outside our niche doesn’t exist, or as though the artistic standards that exist outside our niche somehow don’t exist inside the niche, as well.
None of these debates are new, of course. Click here for a post I wrote two years ago, in which I quoted critical reviews of Christian films that appeared in Christianity Today back in the 1970s.
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