Film Portrayals of Religious Characters: Shaping Public Opinion on Religion and Believers

How Film Shapes Understanding of Religion and Spirituality

Cinema and religion share a complicated yet strong relationship. The portrayal of religious characters in cinema goes beyond representing historical or prophetic figures. Let’s look at how films shape our understanding of religion and spirituality through key themes.

Religious Characters and the Films They Inhabit

It is important to clarify that Religious Characters don’t refer to the portrayal of religious figures like the prophets, religious characters are actually referred to as characters within the plot of a fictional film and how their religious beliefs affect their actions and path in life , these characters exist in movies that explored religious or spiritual topics, for example: Judah Ben – Hur is a fictional character and the main protagonist of Ben-Hur (1959), he is portrayed as a Jewish Prince Of Jerusalem, the movie covers his adventures and struggles against the roman empire, how his encounter with Jesus Christ influenced him to become a Christian.

The Intersection of Theology and Cinema

Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. Cinema has a power to influence the public opinion about religion, movies are tools that reflect the values of societies. However, cinema offers opportunities for the spectators to learn more about spirituality and religion, movies can teach people theology and some religious themes like faith. Movies use different, often wrong, images and stereotypes to challenge our beliefs.

Hollywood's Adaptation of Biblical Stories: Collaborating with Religious Scholars for Authenticity in Film

Hollywood is famous for its movie adaptations of many biblical, and it has complicated relationships with multiple religious institutions. During the production of religious movies, filmmakers, producers, and screenwriters always consult religious scholars. For instance, Jeffrey Katzenberg in the 90s was working on Prince Of Egypt (1998), an animated movie about Moses, he sought the knowledge of biblical scholars, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theologians, as well as Arab Americans leaders to help his film be more accurate and faithful to the original story. He did that because DreamWorks Animation was concerned about biblical accuracy. After previewing the developing film, all these leaders noted that the studio listened and responded to their ideas and praised the studio for reaching out for comment from outside sources.

Framing

Framing does not refer to the character’s position within the frame of the camera— although that can also be an important consideration from an aesthetic perspective. Framing within the discipline of social science refers to the influence a text can have over the human consciousness through communication of ideas. Entman (1993) describes framing in his seminal text on the subject: framing essentially involves selection of certain aspects of a “perceived reality” and changing their salience. Thus, promoting a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item in question. The salience aspect of framing involves highlighting certain bits of information, whether through “placement, repetition, or by associating them with culturally familiar symbols, Entman stresses that frames are present for the communicator, the text, and the receiver. Telford (2005) notes that within the discipline of film studies, these roles are analogous to the filmmaker, the visual images that make up the film, and the spectator. For example, in The Prince Of Egypt (1998) used 3d animation and computer-generated imagery for the creation of the ten plagues, burning bush and the red sea sequence. In The Message (1976), Akkad frequently changed the position of the camera at moment when Muhammad would be brought into vision. When Muhammad was essentially to a scene, the camera would show events from his point of view.

Film Studies Perspective

The film studies focus on three areas of film criticism: auteur criticism, contextual analysis and audience research. Auteur criticism explores and Analyzes the motivation of the author of the film, the director, in this case, we should question the factors and reasons that drive filmmakers to create a religious character. The contextual analysis as the name indicates, it is about the context in which the character was created. Audience research is about the audiences are thinking about the movies that are depicting religious characters.

Previous Research and Analyses

Muslims and Arabs are often negatively identified in mainstream Hollywood films. Historically, Hollywood is known for its racist portrayal of the Muslims, those movies were depicting them as evil people and terrorists especially after the events of September 11 attacks, the rules of engagement (2000) is the best example. Movies about Jews depicted their suffering and history, like Schindler’s list (1993).