Movie Defense Force: Fireproof - The Official White People Problems Movie

WickedLordJasper

New member
Aug 8, 2014
32
0
0
MarsAtlas said:
Rather than portraying such things can be bad, we assume that they're bad, and that these things we're already supposed to hate prior to watching the movie is the real problem. The problem in the marriage isn't that they're so far apart that the husband had to go searching for porn online to experience sexual satisfaction, like it would be in the real world, its that porn is bad.
Well, to play Devil's Advocate, why is it a bad thing that the movie makes assumption about its audience that don't fit everyone? Perhaps you're just not the intended audience. If this movie is intended to be watched by Christians (or at least a particular kind of Christian), in order to help them come to terms with their Christian lifestyle, then these problems aren't "strawmen" at all: they just aren't *your* problems. You might as well argue that a movie about a married gay couple in which they discuss problems specific to same-sex marriage is awful, because those problems aren't yours either.
 

WickedLordJasper

New member
Aug 8, 2014
32
0
0
MarsAtlas said:
But they're not problems specific to Christians. Rather, they're something broadcasted as negative through a Christian lense. Its ideological, and actually religious in nature. Due to that, their reason for holding why its bad is... on faith. you don't reason as to why porn is a marriage-killer, its just assumed that because faith in what somebody else is telling me without them explaining why. Its not even "unreasonable", its a complete lack of reason entirely. Anybody who comes to the film with any perspective that is different than what is represented in the movie will never walk away from the movie thinking differently, and for those who already believe that, well, the movie didn't do anything but give emotional validation. Thats why I call it masturbatory - nobody walks away from it with anything of value. Nobody walks away as a better person, or even having watched a decent film as a timekiller (because they're never even halfway decent films).
If this film's intended audience is a certain subculture of Christianity, then the audience wouldn't need to have it explained why pornography is bad for marriage, any more than they'd need it explained why receiving Communion every week is good. You may not agree with those reasons, but that's just one reason why you're not the target audience.

Now, if the movie doesn't bother to pitch itself to Christians and instead presents itself as something that everyone should be able to empathize with, that's clearly a mistake. But Christian-specific entertainment, like Christian rock, tends to be made with the assumption that no one except Christians are ever going to bother to go see it.

And again, I haven't seen the movie, just the Movie Defense Force, so all this is just hypothesis.
 

Steve the Pocket

New member
Mar 30, 2009
1,649
0
0
bdcjacko said:
Stop wanking all of you. You are on the internets therefore you must be wanking.
Well excuse me if we came here to have an actual discussion on a forum that's dedicated to-- oh, wait, you meant the other kind of wanking.

SonOfVoorhees said:
Why isnt there a Game Defense Force where he defends games that were deemed shit but in reality are quite good.
Are there even any? In this industry, it's rare for anyone but Yahtzee to dare to call a game that isn't horribly broken anything worse than "OK". If there's any kind of consensus as to a game being straight-up bad, there's a good chance it's objectively awful and the best "defense" you could possibly provide for it is that it's "so bad it's good", and even that is damn hard for a game to be given all the technical expertise required to make it halfway decent.
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
11,597
0
0
This it seems, is the sort of film that you need litres of liquor to enjoy.
bdcjacko said:
Stop wanking all of you. You are on the internets therefore you must be wanking.
The baby Jesus is giving me a handjob, that makes it different. I'm not going to hell, you are!
 

Lilani

Sometimes known as CaitieLou
May 27, 2009
6,581
0
0
Even as a Christian I find these sorts of movies insufferable. It's made to be the sort of thing "Christians" want to see, and while apparently that works for some, what gets me really compelled is the stuff I DON'T want to hear. I want tough analyses of the Bible that look at the plausibility of things, and the stories in the context of their time. I've read the works of people like John Spong, whose extremely historical and scholarly approach to the Bible shows that that Mary wasn't called a virgin until the later gospels and Joseph didn't exist until those same later gospels (because of Mary is a virgin you need some kind of a father figure to make sure Jesus isn't dismissed as a bastard, which is exactly how he is addressed in the early gospels), and that the prophecy from Isaiah which Matthew references to demonstrate that the messiah was predicted to come from a virgin was actually a Greek mistranslation which took the word Hebrew "almah" which is simply a young woman of childbearing years (marital status unspecified) and translated it as "parthenos" which does mean "virgin."

So yeah, after seeing some extremely hard to fight reasons for Mary to not have been a virgin, stuff like this comes off at best as rather soft. And at worst it's self-gratifying, self-righteous, and downright masturbatory. Certain types of Christians get off on this stuff the way housewives get off on 50 Shades. This stuff doesn't challenge or compel anybody looking for a challenge to their faith or a compelling reason to consider Christianity, it's a way for Christians who want to maintain their status quo and not think about new things to feel secure in their beliefs. By the end they're like "Yeah, porn's bad, and I knew that. Faith validated, Jesus points earned."
 

Arnoxthe1

Elite Member
Dec 25, 2010
3,391
2
43
SonOfVoorhees said:
Why isnt there a Game Defense Force where he defends games that were deemed shit but in reality are quite good.
You know, I actually made a thread about it awhile but was told that games are somehow different. I forget what reasons they gave but I remember I didn't agree with it.

EDIT: Ah yes, here's the thread.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.400868-Why-Isnt-There-A-GAME-Defense-Force
 

jademunky

New member
Mar 6, 2012
973
0
0
Wow that was funny. Now I have to actually watch that movie. Damn you Jim Sterlingggggggggg!!!
 

jademunky

New member
Mar 6, 2012
973
0
0
daxterx2005 said:
He really cast his own wife to play in the movie so he wouldnt have to kiss an actress?
That does sound like something Kirk Cameron would do.
 

Fappy

\[T]/
Jan 4, 2010
12,010
0
41
Country
United States
Lilani said:
Even as a Christian I find these sorts of movies insufferable. It's made to be the sort of thing "Christians" want to see, and while apparently that works for some, what gets me really compelled is the stuff I DON'T want to hear. I want tough analyses of the Bible that look at the plausibility of things, and the stories in the context of their time. I've read the works of people like John Spong, whose extremely historical and scholarly approach to the Bible shows that that Mary wasn't called a virgin until the later gospels and Joseph didn't exist until those same later gospels (because of Mary is a virgin you need some kind of a father figure to make sure Jesus isn't dismissed as a bastard, which is exactly how he is addressed in the early gospels), and that the prophecy from Isaiah which Matthew references to demonstrate that the messiah was predicted to come from a virgin was actually a Greek mistranslation which took the word Hebrew "almah" which is simply a young woman of childbearing years (marital status unspecified) and translated it as "parthenos" which does mean "virgin."

So yeah, after seeing some extremely hard to fight reasons for Mary to not have been a virgin, stuff like this comes off at best as rather soft. And at worst it's self-gratifying, self-righteous, and downright masturbatory. Certain types of Christians get off on this stuff the way housewives get off on 50 Shades. This stuff doesn't challenge or compel anybody looking for a challenge to their faith or a compelling reason to consider Christianity, it's a way for Christians who want to maintain their status quo and not think about new things to feel secure in their beliefs. By the end they're like "Yeah, porn's bad, and I knew that. Faith validated, Jesus points earned."
I want to frame this post.

Seriously, so much truth :O

OT: This movie looks like ass-balls.
 

Flunk

New member
Feb 17, 2008
915
0
0
I thought the point of this show was to defend terrible movies. I think you really had enough material to backhandedly insult this one, instead of going straight at it for the first time ever.

Also, if god didn't want us to touch ourselves he/she/it would have made it impossible. Building people a certain way and telling them not to act on their urges would be cruel and petty. Or maybe he/she/it just doesn't exist, which is the simplest solution.
 

deathbydeath

New member
Jun 28, 2010
1,363
0
0
WickedLordJasper said:
Well, to play Devil's Advocate, why is it a bad thing that the movie makes assumption about its audience that don't fit everyone? Perhaps you're just not the intended audience. If this movie is intended to be watched by Christians (or at least a particular kind of Christian), in order to help them come to terms with their Christian lifestyle, then these problems aren't "strawmen" at all: they just aren't *your* problems. You might as well argue that a movie about a married gay couple in which they discuss problems specific to same-sex marriage is awful, because those problems aren't yours either.
I'm not quite sure you two understand each other. Fireproof's problem is that the movie is about Churchianity [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Churchianity&defid=1917781], not Christianity if that makes any sense.

Anyways, I'm going to echo quite a few people here and say I was quite disappointed with this week's MDF. I hadn't tuned in recently, and when I saw it today I was expecting an interesting and off-beat opinion of a relatively tired subject. Way to let me down, Jim.

Flunk said:
Also, if god didn't want us to touch ourselves he/she/it would have made it impossible. Building people a certain way and telling them not to act on their urges would be cruel and petty.
You're completely missing the point. The simplest premise of Christianity is that God doesn't want people to be assholes and instead wants them to be nice to each other, but forcing someone to be nice by giving them no other option is a fallacy. You can't force someone to not be an asshole, because being an asshole requires a conscious choice. Similarly, there is no point in doing good if you are unable to do evil.
 

Olas

Hello!
Dec 24, 2011
3,226
0
0
So is Movie Defense Force just going to be clear mockery under sarcastic appraisal from here on? It's not nearly as interesting unfortunately. Perhaps if Jim's run out of movie's he thinks are underrated he could try doing an antithesis show where he rips on movies everybody seems to love but really have problems, or maybe that would come across as too mean-spirited and argumentative. I am a ghost!
 

deathbydeath

New member
Jun 28, 2010
1,363
0
0
Lilani said:
Certain types of Christians get off on this stuff the way housewives get off on 50 Shades.

Seriously tho, if Fappy hadn't already QFT'd this then I would have. While I'm more about the ethics of Christianity than the academic and etymological aspects of the Bible (what you posted was cool, though) today's church still needs to call itself out a lot more than it already does. The Body of Christ needs some actual damn introspection a lot more than it needs Jesus at this point in time, and things have gotten so masturbatory it should be smashing its computer monitor instead of Kirk Cameron. Well, maybe him too...
 

Naeras

New member
Mar 1, 2011
989
0
0
Oh god this movie. It hurts. Ugh.

Lilani said:
By the end they're like "Yeah, porn's bad, and I knew that. Faith validated, Jesus points earned."
So... what happens when you earn enough Jesus points?

Can they be traded for cookies?
 

F.Dubois

New member
Sep 17, 2014
24
0
0
If the Jesus Points can't be traded into an allowance for watching porn then I am not converting any time soon. And come on guys, some movies can only feasibly be "defended" if you put your brain on stand by and relish in the love for the magic jewish carpenter and I guess this can be fun for a second or two.