In Chapter 5 of my recent book How We Got Here: A Guide to Our Anti-Christian Culture, titled “Stories and Storytellers,” I detailed how Hollywood and the entertainment industry have transformed our “social imaginary” by reshaping the narratives that define our culture.
The term “social imaginary” was coined by the philosopher Charles Taylor, author of the seminal 2007 work A Secular Age. Taylor explains the concept as follows:
I speak of “imaginary” (i) because I’m talking about the way ordinary people “imagine” their social surroundings, and this is often not expressed in theoretical terms, it is carried in images, stories, legends, etc. But it is also the case that (ii) theory is often the possession of a small minority, whereas what is interesting in the social imaginary is that it is shared by large groups of people, if not the whole society. Which leads to a third difference: (iii) the social imaginary is that common understanding which makes possible common practices, and a widely shared sense of legitimacy.
It will not come as news to Christians that the entertainment industry pushes anti-Christian messages (although they often do so under the guise of pushing pro-LGBT propaganda, as the recent Academy Awards highlighted once again). Thus, when we sit in front of screens to watch the stories produced by our culture’s storytellers, we are passively absorbing their worldview. The cultural impact of this has been tremendous, and the colonization of the minds of churchgoers by the entertainment industry has been very successful.
Two recent Hollywood stories emphasize, once again, why seemingly insignificant “entertainment stories” are in fact more culturally important than many of us might recognize, as is the fact that people are finally getting sick of being force-fed progressive propaganda.
Exhibit A is the monumental failure of Disney’s new live-action version of their 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The comments of Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White, have been pinpointed as a key reason the movie bombed at the box office, and the film became a lightning rod for the dissatisfaction of everyone sick of being preached to by celebrities. Indeed, Zegler used her fame to push for abortion:
The star of a movie ostensibly targeted at children used her platform to promote Kamala Harris because: “Our rights are on the line, folks. Our reproductive rights [abortion]. Come on. Go vote blue. And if you disagree with this sentiment, just hit the unfollow button. I don’t need your business. Thanks!” Translation: If you don’t believe that aborting children is the most paramount of all rights, don’t bother come seeing my children’s movie. To the despair of Disney executives, many heeded her. As I’ve noted before, Walt Disney must be rolling over in his grave.
The second story emerged from the firestorm surrounding the ongoing fight between megastars Ryan Reynolds, his wife Blake Lively, and Lively’s co-star in the recent film It Ends With Us, Justin Baldoni. I’m disinterested in this story, but it would appear based on social media that I am the only one – even conservative commentators like Brett Cooper have been obsessively following the lawsuits and the drama. But one detail did catch my eye. From Yahoo News:
Ryan Reynolds’ latest controversy couldn’t come at a worse time for the actor. A recently resurfaced clip from the filmmaker commentary track cut of “Deadpool & Wolverine” is making the rounds, and Reynolds is under fire for admitting he had his then-7-year-old, Inez, say an explicit line in the film.
In one of the scenes from the 2024 film, Inez, as the character Kidpool, says “Hey, when I want your opinion, I’ll take Wolverine’s d**k out of your mouth.”
Reynolds admitted that he was “guilty” of having his second child say the line.
“I’m so sorry we have to admit that,” director Shawn Levy says, laughing.
“And I am father of the year over here for allowing her to say such language,” Reynolds explained. “Which, to her credit, she really didn’t want to say.”
He said he was already interviewing other people to say the line when Inez “came back later and said ‘I want to say it now.’”
Levy said that to the two’s “discredit,” they “made Nezzy do, I’m not sh****g you, 70 to 500 versions of that line.”
“I’m going to pay for that later,” Reynolds said.
To sum up: Ryan Reynolds, doting father, had his seven-year-old girl practice and perform a movie line in which she references oral sex with an adult. Anyone who does not recognize this as fundamentally vile has no moral compass, full stop. And this was filmed, and put in a movie, for mass consumption, apparently on the assumption that people wouldn’t notice a child saying something like this because Hollywood does this all the time.
Reynolds even complimented his little girl for not wanting to say the line, but she ultimately agreed – probably to please her dad – and then practiced it between “70 to 500 times.”
Hollywood is a vile, exploitative industry, run by largely amoral people pushing the destruction and exploitation of children. These two stories – the abortion-pushing Snow White and the child-exploiting Ryan Reynolds – are from this month alone, and they tell us everything we need to know about this industry.
