Thoughts: Why CAPAlert is Insane

Why CAPAlert is Insane

[A note: I wrote this essay a long time ago, out of frustration at the CAPAlert review described below, as well as others. Likewise, the CAPAlert "review" of American History X is also very old. I have no idea if the person who "reviewed" American History X for CAPAlert is still working with them or not. I am aware that different reviewers can have different perspectives on films, and that not everyone who works for CAPAlert--if it is indeed staffed by more than one person, which I'm not really sure about--thinks alike. Just putting that out there.]


I have nothing against Christians watching movies. I have nothing against Christians reviewing movies. I even have nothing against Christians reviewing movies from a Christian perspective--in fact, I wish more Christians would do that.

But if they did, I would hope that they would not be as dense and hypocritical as CAPAlert.

CAPAlert is a site that contains Christian “reviews” (really analyses) of many popular movies. As of this writing, they have 1100 reviews. I admit it’s a bit erroneous to call them ‘reviews’, because really they’re not--and CAPAlert says they’re not. However, since it’s difficult to find another word to call them, reviews they shall remain.

CAPAlert does not review films based on who they’re made by, who they star, or whether they’re a blockbuster (though like most Christian review sites, they contain mostly new and popular films). CAPAlert has a different goal in mind, and the founder of CAPAlert states his mission better than I ever could. According to the CAPAlert webpage, CAPAlert is

“The #1 Christian entertainment media analysis service on the Internet! We give you OBJECTIVE tools NO ONE ELSE CAN to help YOU make an informed moral decision for yourself whether a film is fit!” CAPAlert contains “More than 1100 film analyses for parents, grandparents, pastors, youth leaders and more. Stay informed ...OBJECTIVELY... on what Hollywood feeds your kids.”

I agree that there is nothing wrong with this, in theory. A parent should be informed on the movies they take their children to see. In fact, I think that taking young children to films that are vastly inappropriate for them is a major failing of modern American parents.

To digress further: I have gone to see all three Lord of the Rings films in the theater. I also went to see Alien vs. Predator on the big screen. While I enjoyed all these films greatly, my enjoyment was spoiled somewhat by the fact that there were very young children in the theater who should not have been there. It only takes a small amount of grey matter--and plain common sense--to figure out that films such as Lord of the Rings are NOT appropriate for a two-, three-, or four-year-old, yet I saw young children who were in those age ranges at the films. LOTR is violent, dark, frightening, and extremely long and complex. It is a movie for adult and teenagers, not babies and toddlers.

Do I blame the filmmakers, or decry the content of the films? No. I blame the parents who were either so shallow and unthinking, or so completely selfish, as to take their children to films that would frighten them and confuse them, and annoy everyone within earshot of the child’s whispering, questioning, or noise-making.

But back to CAPAlert. CAPAlert claims to objectively review films from a Christian perspective, noting content that may be offensive to parents and grandparents--content that would be offensive for their children to watch, that is. CAPAlert claims,

“We make no scoring allowances for Hollywood's trumped-up "messages" to excuse, or its manufacturing of justification for aberrant behavior or imagery. This is NOT a movie review service. It is a movie analysis service to parents and grandparents to tell them the truth about movies using the Truth.”

Fair enough...but CAPAlert does not review movies fairly. It would be one thing if they said, “Such and such movie has such and such content, which would be inappropriate for a young child.” That’s fine, and that’s what I would say about Lord of the Rings. It’s bursting at the seams with content that I wouldn’t let a little kid see, especially not in a theater. But does that make it an immoral film? No, just an inappropriate one.

It is this fine distinction that CAPAlert either erases from their thinking or ignores completely. In their view, just about any film that features characters doing Very Bad Things--especially if those Very Bad Things are portrayed in a graphic fashion--is a film that promotes immorality, and a film that may well encourage impressionable teens to do likewise. The immoral acts that a character may commit or is implied to commit are immoral to either view or portray, according to CAPAlert.

For one of the most clear-cut and egregious examples of their methodology, I will use their review/analysis of American History X. It is unlikely that anyone who has seen this film will forget it. It is a searing, graphic portrayal of the Biblical principle that whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. In the case of the film, the main character, Derek Vinyeard, is a racist skinhead who is a member of a neo-Nazi gang. One night he murders a black gang member and is sent to prison for three years. He swiftly joins a white gang for protection but is eventually viciously raped by his fellow skinheads when he confronts them over their supposed lack of zeal for “White Pride”.

The film follows Derek’s life of brutality and sin before he was sent to prison, his degrading rape, and the change it effects in his life. After the assault, he is a broken and changed individual. When he is released, he goes back home and attempts to prevent his younger brother from following in his footsteps.

American History X is an incredible film. It is a very good film, and a very thoughtful and challenging one. It is also extremely violent and disturbing, contains a great deal of sex, bad language, and violence, and it is not appropriate for a young child to watch.

I would never allow a young child, either my own or someone else’s, to watch American History X. That being said, it is not a bad film and is appropriate for a mature teenager or adult to watch and examine the consequences of hate, racism, and how bad the human condition can be. From this perspective, which I believe is a valid and Christian one, the film can be seen as a valuable, albeit challenging, resource to provoke thought and reflection about human evil.

However, to CAPAlert, American History X is nothing of the sort. The reviewer opens his analysis with this pithy, if absurdly shallow, statement: “Like we really need another movie presenting a school shooting.”

The event the reviewer is referring to happens towards the end of the film. This statement would make an ignorant reader think that this is what the movie is all about, when in fact it is nothing of the sort. CAPAlert plows over the entire point of the film--essentially, the actual reason all the violence, bad language, and sexual activity was put on the screen in the first place--and completely mis-categorizes the film as something about a school shooting. While it certainly contains that incident, it is not about that incident, and it's certainly not about the type of shooting that happened at Columbine and other places.

But CAPAlert plows on: “American History X presented this and the most foul word of the foul language 186 times, 97 uses of other three/four letter words, racial hatred, prison rape, murder, and sexual intercourse. And all in 114 minutes! That is what American History X was all about.”

No, it was not what the film was all about. It was what the film contained, but if the above content was solely what the film was about, it would be a porn/snuff film with absolutely nothing but sex and violence. Instead, it was a film with a message, the impact of which was apparently lost on CAPAlert.

CAPAlert continues, “The swastika represents more than just Nazi Germany. There is much more to the unholy swastika. If you wish to know more about it, visit our Back to School Special from our opening screen. Besides, Jesus does not want us to wear tattoos: Leviticus 19:28 ...”

First of all, the character in the film who does have Nazi tattoos is a depraved neo-Nazi who hates Jews, blacks, and anyone else who isn’t lily-white. I honestly do not expect what the CAP reviewer would expect to see on the body of a neo-Nazi: Magic-Marker drawings of fluffy bunnies? Nothing at all? It’s a reasonable, true-to-life, and expected assumption that a gang member would have gang tattoos, and that a hardcore skinhead would have Nazi tattoos. To be shocked and offended that such a character would have swastika tattoos--or any tattoos at all--is like watching a film that features a casino and being offended that extras are shown working the slot machines.

From CAPAlert: “Beatings, Nazi worship, and nauseous brutality violated almost every sense of the observer.”

Again, I don’t know what else CAPAlert could have expected, and from the way they phrase things, an ignorant reader might very well think that the film glorifies Nazi behavior, when in fact it does not. CAPAlert seems very concerned that the film will have a poor impact on the way teens will act, yet they seem unconcerned that their ‘analysis’ distorts and butchers the very deep and profound themes that American History X presents. All that they see is the violence, the blood, the death, the rape, and the bad language. In seeing the individual trees, they miss the forest and instead wander about in it, pointing and gasping in horror at various trees. They fail utterly in offering either a dispassionate, objective listing of content or a thoughtful look at films from a Christian perspective.

CAPAlert concludes their analysis with “A most vile movie”, to which I say, “A most obtuse review”.

Christians--for the love of God, for the sake of the Gospel--THINK! Don’t just react, don’t just fluff something off with pithy little knee-jerk platitudes if it happens to have content that curls your hair or raises your eyebrows. THINK. The more of the widespread abysmal, smug shallowness of thought, writing, artistic effort, and intellect that I see in American Christendom, the more I admire men like C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien--who were deeply Christian writers and philosophers who challenged themselves, their friends, and everyone who reads their works. They thought deeply about a variety of things. I’m not saying that everyone has to have the intellect of a Tolkien or a Lewis, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more depth in the world of on-line Christian thought... especially when it comes to tackling the review of films from a “Christian worldview”.

CAPAlert's review of "American History X".