When Religious Cinema Meets Secular Press: Reviewers’ Reactions to the Films of Sherwood Pictures

Abstract

Since 2006, a rural Georgia church has successfully produced and nationally distributed three feature length films. Each movie has shown higher production quality and box office profits than the last. The current research uses a perspective from Quentin Schultze to examine how this “tribal” medium is received by the larger mainstream press. In examining critics’ reviews, the investigation suggests that the films were viewed negatively, but that justifications for displeasure were not traditional aesthetic flaws. Instead, much of the focus was on the fact that the films were preachy and allowed limited polysemy. Such findings raise interesting questions about mainstream press acceptance of overtly religious media messages.