Warden Norton in "The Shawshank Redemption" quoted Bible verses while mistreating inmates and pilfering money. Typical Christian behavior!
Fanatical preacher in "Contact" who blows up an interplanetary spaceship because, you know, Christians HATE everything about science.
The fire-snorting, fumbling, preacher from "Inherit the Wind" wilts under pressure from cool, rational evolutionists. Suffering a heart attack on the stand while raining down judgment on the courtroom is the least this intellectual worm deserves.
Mrs. Carmody from "The Mist." Just your average Christian housewife waiting for the Apocalypse so she can uncork that pent up repression in self-righteous wrath. Yawn.
Mother from "Carrie." Garden variety Pentecostal, wild-eyed and witchy. Just imagine how many innocent telekinetic teens are locked in closets because of these Bible thumpers.
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yes!
Interesting list, Mike and even more interesting that most of these characters are originally from Stephen King adaptions.
-Cory
And even when King paints a sympathetic religious figure, like John Coffey on The Green Mile, they’re just weird. (Remember, he dies because he can’t suffer any more of the world’s evils.)
Isn’t it weird how King packs out so many of his novels with religious themes and symbolism…yet he can’t have an even remotely sympathetic Christian, even religious, character? Think about the dome novel he did…the baddies were all the folks who attended church while the good guys consisted of a pastor who didn’t believe in God anymore, a college professor shackin’ up with a student, and other characters who weren’t associated with the church in the novel. I wonder if he’s afraid of being tagged as “too religious” (and Lord help ‘em if that happens…) so he throws in stereotypes to balance things out. Just a thought.
I haven’t read ton of King (mostly his 80′s stuff–Pet Semetary, It, Misery & that Kindle one), but I get the vibe that King likes redeeming broken people & calling out hypocrites (bad parents, irresponsible authority figures, the ‘church’ in name only, etc.).
I know they’re horrible portrayals of ‘Christians’ but it’s also very telling at exposing Christians who don’t exactly act like they should.
I know too many people who have met (and been hurt by) real people like these stereotypes to turn a completely blind eye to calling them out. ^^;
“but I get the vibe that King likes redeeming broken people & calling out hypocrites”
I can’t call myself a King expert, but that’s what I’ve always felt, too. For all those bad King stereotypes, Mother Abigale from the Stand was a pretty positive “Christiany” character, IMHO.
Well said, Liliy! I agree. And he does have some great positive Christian characters–in the book Desperation, for example. That one was pretty heavy on the Christian as hero: a kid with genuine innocence and belief.
King is bad at tropes, period, and he does absolutely hate people that he would (and has) describe as “fundies.” It makes for lousy caricatures, ultimately.
I like his books, but, basically, you can count on his blacks and/or open Christians being atrocious portrayals, whether they are good guys or bad guys (odd tangent: the only good guy Christians he ever writes are black.)
The fellow has a very consistent, predictable blind spot, and, even though he does dogs, kids, clowns and lonely heart women really well, he falls flat with blacks, Christians, and the affable hedonistic hero (who always turns out to be a moralistic traditionalist at heart).
So true! I get so very frustrated when I watch movies. Or even read books. I’m about to put down a fantasy book (and I almost NEVER can’t finish a book) because of all the pontificating about the Bad Guys… who are, of course, religious fanatics who do terrible things in this life as a sacrifice to earn their way into heaven. *shudder* It’s not specifically Christian, but fairly thinly veiled. Nothing of grace, or love, or repentance and forgiveness.
Another one was the priest from the original War of the Worlds. He preached at one of the tripods and got zapped in the middle of it.
Not so much the portrayal as it was Wells’ or the directors thoughts on religious belief.
That’s a particularly interesting one, since the only mass surveys done on Christ worship and aliens indicates that, among the subset of people who admit an alien encounter who also cried out to Jesus Christ (in faith, not as a curse or religious symbol) almost universally experienced an immediate release from the experience.
In other words, it would be more true to the known “real world” alien narrative that a sermon would cause some sort of retreat on the aliens part.
Plus the believers from There Will Be Blood…and The Handmaid’s Tale…and the remake of Cape Fear, Robert DeNiro’s character tatted up with Bible verses while he’s busy terrorizing Nick Nolte and his family.
I had Eli Sunday (from There Will Be Blood) on this list for a while. I don’t remember the Cape Fear character’s Bible tats. I’ll have to check that out.
Forgot about Shawshank Redemption. Saw Carrie once and barely remember it. Don’t recall Contact, and never seen Inherit the Wind. That asinine lady from The Mist was one reason I hated that movie. I was honestly cheered up when she was offed.
OK, what’s frightening is people calling themselves Christians are adopting these kinds of stereotypes for Christians who differ from them. Amazing how pervasive media influence can be.
Becky
You mean like the whole “Love Jesus but hate Religion,” movement’s portrayal of “religious” people? That movement worries me. . .
Write what you know, right? Turns out, Hollywood doesn’t know Christians. Christians are often called out on crafting sinister atheists, but it’s rare someone is called out for creating corny Christians. Glee, oh-my-gosh, Glee! Just, wow. And then there’s that Mandy Moore movie, “Saved.”
Want a portrayal of a good Christian? Try Dean Koontz’s “Hideaway.” (The book, not that thing they call a movie)
I also watched a movie recently that had an interesting, yet fair, portrayal of a Christian struggling drug-addict. Horror film. Pretty excited about reviewing it, actually.
Totally agree with Hideaway. Others in the same vein would be One Door Away From Heaven, and From the Corner of His Eye (also The Taking, but the horror element would keep some from reading it). I love the fact so much of Koontz’s Christianity comes through in his books; it’s done organically, sometimes obliquely, but it’s there.
Here’s another terrible movie with extremely negatize stereotypes about Christians- the Edgar Frost flick, pAUL. A young woman with an eye disease, wearing a shirt with Jesus shooting Charles Darwin through the head saying “Evolve This!” and her extremist religious dad sounds rather radical in every single one of his vies with no room for personal leniency. And when the daughter acts like her “kidnappers”, it just gets worse.
and people see those characters and stupidly say, “Exactly! That’s exactly how those people are…those Christians.”