What’s more violent – a zombie apocalypse or a faith-based film produced by a Southern Baptist church?
The zombies don’t even come close to being as scary as the Baptists if you believe the Motion Picture Association of America.
The MPAA slapped an R rating on “My Son,” a small-budget film made by the congregation of Retta Baptist Church in Burleson, Tex.
“They told us it was because of violence and drug use portrayed in the film,” Pastor Chuck Kitchens told Fox News. “I was very shocked. It makes me sick at my stomach.”
The pastor said the church’s film does not include foul language, sex scenes or nudity. He did confirm there was violence surrounding a hostage standoff in the church as well as some drug usage. But Kitchens said the violence was neither gory nor gratuitous. By comparison he pointed out the MPAA gave “World War Z” and “BULLY” PG-13 ratings. And “Jobs,” which included scenes featuring LSD and marijuana usage got a PG-13 rating.
“When you look at the facts and see there are other movies that have been rated PG-13 that have more violence and more drug scenes, you have to say there’s inconsistency there,” he said.
Kitchens told Fox News he believes the R-rating has more to do with the movie’s faith-based message than the violence. He said the R-rating is a huge problem because many of his fellow pastors won’t encourage their church members to see an R-rated film.
“We were relying on pastors to advertise to their congregations and sell tickets,” he said. “That’s our marketing strategy. We don’t have Hollywood bucks for commercials.”
Kitchens said they’ve tried reaching out to the MPAA to find out what exactly needed to be removed from the film to achieve a PG-13 rating. But so far, they haven’t gotten any concrete answers.
“We want a level playing field,” he said. “You’ve got other religious groups and other belief systems that are being portrayed in films all the time without the same kind of criticism and scrutiny.”
Dan Isett, director of public policy for the Parents Television Council, told Fox News he’s not surprised the church has had trouble getting specific answers from the MPAA.
“This is the type of situation that evolves when you have a completely un-open, non-transparent rating system,” he said. “The issue with media ratings generally, is that nobody really knows what these ratings mean. At what point does content move from one rating to another?”
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