Games Hollywood play (and unprofitable ones at that!)

"Sure, it would be nice to have more family-friendly films, but Hollywood is a business, and like any business, it's designed to make money. If PG-13- and R-rated films rule at the multiplex, it's because they're the most profitable, right? Guess again. PG-13- and R-rated films don't make the most money---not by a long shot. Ironically, it's G- and PG-rated films that prove to be the most lucrative.

"[The Dove Foundation] examined the average profits per film between 1989 and 2003, and it found that G-rated films produced 11 times more profit than R-rated films. Yet Hollywood produced 12 times more R-rated films than G-rated films during the same time period! What sense does that make?...

"So why are [family-friendly movies] few and far between? Maybe it's a question of culture. In blue-state Hollywood, what better way to establish your liberal credentials---and thumb your nose at red-state, middle America---than to trash traditional values at every opportunity? Whatever the reason, we can't change things simply by complaining---or remaining silent. Our best defense is to support good films." - Rebecca Hagelin

Lucrative Jesus

Goodness, this hurts. Bad. And have you read my latest column on this kind of a subject yet?

With nearly 87 percent of Americans identifying themselves as Christians, experts said, religion has become a lucrative part of American popular culture.

The influence of evangelicals is everywhere in today's society, according to Alan Wolfe, a sociologist at Boston College, but that is because evangelicals are being influenced by popular culture, not the other way around.

"I see them not as shapers of American culture, I see popular culture shaping them," Wolfe said. "Evangelicals are different from fundamentalists who reject popular culture because they think it is corrupt. Evangelicals don't want to reject the world, they want to persuade others to the way of Jesus and engage other people in their religion. Embracing popular culture has allowed them to do that."