Why was Catholicism portrayed more favorably in film in 1940's and 1950's?

[M-Dent]

Because people were more religious in the olden days.

In the US, that is reasonably accurate. Yet early on up into the early 1900’s – it wasn’t always a good thing for Catholics in the US.

My grandparents (in the the Boston area) suffered quite a bit of persecution (state endorsed) for letting it known they were practicing Catholics. This was not uncommon in many other places in the US as well.

Though starting around the 1950’s Catholicism slowly became less threatening to many.

 

[7_Sorrows]

maybe we were more of a Christian church attending country in the 1940’s and 1950’s and there was more of a desire to see wholesome family movies like these.

Last night, Christmas night, I was watching a documentary series on CNN called Finding Jesus. The two episodes I watched seemed to be wanting to refute that Jesus existed. I didn’t watch anymore as it seemed they were trying to rewrite Christianity.

So it is sad to see what has happened in the last 76 years.

 

[Techno2000]

maybe we were more of a Christian church attending country in the 1940’s and 1950’s and there was more of a desire to see wholesome family movies like these.

Last night, Christmas night, I was watching a documentary series on CNN called Finding Jesus. The two episodes I watched seemed to be wanting to refute that Jesus existed. I didn’t watch anymore as it seemed they were trying to rewrite Christianity.

So it is sad to see what has happened in the last 76 years.

Right, and the modern day pictures and depictions of him don’t look as Holy as the old time images of Jesus.

 

[edwest2]

The goal today is for a media that once wrote Editorials in praise of the birth of Christ, to malign the Church, and present Christianity in general and living as God intended as a bad thing.

Cohabitation is normal/average/neutral. It’s wrong.

Divorce was rare. But that’s changed for the worse and the media portrays it as normal/average/neutral. That’s wrong.

Dirty photos and sexual situations on TV and the internet are normal/average/neutral. That’s wrong. Growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, a dirty magazine was a dirty magazine, including Playboy. Any publication or photo that showed a woman partly unclothed or nude was wrong. Girlie magazines, sold literally under the counter, were dirty - morally. Unlike Playboy, which tried to give the impression that the “modern” man wanted to know about the finest cars, the finest clothes, the finest drink and the finest women, plus interviews with important people, like Fidel Castro, made Playboy “the” magazine. Of course, we bought it for the articles.

Girlie magazines dispensed with the (un)necessary stuff and had page after page of nude or partly nude photos of women. And still photos? Only if you knew where to go.

All of that was not allowed, especially on TV. Nothing sexual. No profanity. You couldn’t even say the word pregnant. People got married and lived in stable homes. Good, wholesome TV, regardless of your religion. But those who wanted us to accept and like what they wanted were working very hard to “push the envelope.” What did that mean? Slow poisoning via the media. In the 1970s. a little bad, then a little more, then a little more, then a little, and now - more.

A local newspaper recently ran an article titled “What if Jesus had been born to hipsters?” Pretty cool, huh? Those same 1950s hipsters that had kids who couldn’t be hip as part of average life, which was dominated by ‘squares,’ and because religion was dragging them down. The answer? Drag religion down. Especially in a media world that once tolerated religion.

Ed

 

[7_Sorrows]

Does anyone want to name any of your favorite old movies that centered around the
Catholic church or Catholicism?
I guess Boys Town might be another one.

 

[FollowChrist34]

I am a film buff and have noticed Catholicism seemed to be treated with respect in films from decades past. Some examples are Going My Way, The Bells of St. Mary’s, The Singing Nun, The Song of Bernadette and even the Alfred Hitchcock film I Confess.
There are probably more that don’t come to mind right now.
There are many scenes that take place in Catholic churches involving baptisms, confirmations and weddings that last only a minute or two.
These days you rarely see a movie centered around the Catholic faith. I wish this would change.

I can’t think of an American example, but you do still see some rare postive portrayals of Catholicism around. Father Brown, some of the later Hercule Poirot films starring David Suchet - he walks around with a rosary talking about mercy, repentance, etc. Even the popular crime drama Vera had a Catholic character as her sidekick - he is sympathetically portrayed, if poked fun at from time to time. The key is removing the ‘social conservatism’ - moral teaching that is so unpopular in the modernized secular West. Priests and nuns walking around in robes loving everyone, helping the poor, turning a blind eye to sin - liberal Catholicism in a nutshell, lives on in the media relatively unscathed. The real thing does not fare quite so well. (by which I mean the whole package, mercy + teaching, doctrine) Father Brown would not go there.

Obvious larger answer is that there has been an unmistakable shift to the negative in mainstream secular attitudes to the Christian faith. I remember when people admired the Quakers - conscientious objection, peace-loving, virtue-loving - nowadays I don’t think anyone under 40 or 50 even knows who they are/were. They don’t know much more about Catholics (except maybe the ‘bad guy’ anti SSM, abortion part). I was an adult convert; I read about the Church and had been Catholic as a small child. There is no information out there really; you have to either already be a Catholic or want to learn about the Catholic Church and work very hard to do it. Hollywood reflects this social ignorance, hostility, and then some. But yes, I too am amazed at how much it has grown in the last 20, 30 years or so. Unfortunately this ignorance covers more than just religion - Hollywood monotone popular culture overruns/negates the influence of serious culture and art, ideas too - has for some time now. This is America after all. Chicken and egg.

 

[edwest2]

Serious art, which I spent some time looking at over the weekend, has been overrun with the unrecognizable, incomprehensible and “as long as it doesn’t look like commercial art” attitude for decades. Draw something realistic? What’s wrong with you? The same with glass and other materials. Create something warped and distorted - Cool. Create something that shows obvious attributes and symmetry and all that boring stuff - Not Cool. It will not be regarded as art, or art worth talking about.

Ed

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

I am a film buff and have noticed Catholicism seemed to be treated with respect in films from decades past. Some examples are Going My Way, The Bells of St. Mary’s, The Singing Nun, The Song of Bernadette and even the Alfred Hitchcock film I Confess.
There are probably more that don’t come to mind right now.
There are many scenes that take place in Catholic churches involving baptisms, confirmations and weddings that last only a minute or two.
These days you rarely see a movie centered around the Catholic faith. I wish this would change.

It was a more civilized era.

 

[edwest2]

It was a more civilized era.

Civil as in civilization, as in a more uniform social ethic which was displayed in actual behavior. No, it was not perfect, but it had more of what is lacking today.

Ed

 

[Arizona_Mike]

It’s a whole lot rarer now than then, when Catholicism had a much bigger role in far more Americans’ lives…

But you can still find some favorable Catholic portrayals in film and TV.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, to a filmmaker we have a lot more going for us than the Protestants.

Our priests are celibate, which is incredibly exotic and otherworldly to anyone in Hollywood.

The Mass is richly symbolic even to an outsider. Any Catholic church but a modern one is architecturally far more appealing to a cinematographer than a Protestant one.

We lay claim to some of the more interesting, lovable, and cinematic ethnicities - Irish, Mexicans, Poles, French, Italians, and Filipinos, to name a few.

When satanists want to mock religion, do they do a Black Quaker Friend’s Meeting? Do they do a Black Baptist Altar Call? No, they do a Black Mass. If you’re a filmmaker and need to show the opposing force to Satan’s powers on earth, who you gonna call? You’re going to call a Catholic.

 

[twf]

It was a more civilized era.

Depends what you mean by that. Black people in the US South may have disagreed. House wives without recourse stuck in abusive marriages with husbands who quoted Scripture (“wives obey your husbands”) a them may have disagreed. I think its dangerous to imagine some golden era of the past where all lived in some sort of Christian utopia. It never existed.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Depends what you mean by that. Black people in the US South may have disagreed. House wives without recourse stuck in abusive marriages with husbands who quoted Scripture (“wives obey your husbands”) a them may have disagreed. I think its dangerous to imagine some golden era of the past where all lived in some sort of Christian utopia. It never existed.

I KNEW this was coming…

And I still stand by my statement: it was a more CIVILIZED era.

 

[twf]

I KNEW this was coming…

And I still stand by my statement: it was a more CIVILIZED era.

What does that mean though? I honestly don’t get it. White male Protestants acted civil towards one another? It wasn’t a great time for Catholics in many areas still too recall…even when Kennedy was elected there was a lot of backlash. I’m not baiting…I honestly don’t get what made it more “civilized”.

 

[edwest2]

Depends what you mean by that. Black people in the US South may have disagreed. House wives without recourse stuck in abusive marriages with husbands who quoted Scripture (“wives obey your husbands”) a them may have disagreed. I think its dangerous to imagine some golden era of the past where all lived in some sort of Christian utopia. It never existed.

“It never existed” is a common statement from those on the Left to discredit a whole generation. It existed. I was there. I was happy. We had meager means but that didn’t matter. We did not all go to the same Church but we shared common values and treated each other in a friendly, polite way. We had manners. We had boundaries. We had a community, not the disconnected tribalism of today.

Sure, it wasn’t perfect. We had a few bad apples but we did not lock our doors at night.

It is wrong to make broad brush statements.

Ed

 

[twf]

“It never existed” is a common statement from those on the Left to discredit a whole generation. It existed. I was there. I was happy. We had meager means but that didn’t matter. We did not all go to the same Church but we shared common values and treated each other in a friendly, polite way. We had manners. We had boundaries. We had a community, not the disconnected tribalism of today.

Sure, it wasn’t perfect. We had a few bad apples but we did not lock our doors at night.

It is wrong to make broad brush statements.

Ed

What period would you attribute this Christian “utopia” too? How many decades before your time? Are you saying things like the Civil Rights movement weren’t really necessary if everyone lived in harmony? I’m not an American…but I just find this very contrary to what the history books say. From my Canadian perspective, I would question that a Christian utopia existed here in the 1950s and previous…I’ve personally met aboriginals who were abused and oppressed by both Catholic and Protestant authorities in a systematic and institutional matter. Crimes that everyone from the Pope down have acknowledged and apologized for. I always drew parallels in my mind with the situation of African-Americans in the US South.

 

[edwest2]

I never used the word utopia.

Ed

 

[twf]

I never used the word utopia.

Ed

I did use that word, in the context of my assertion that it “never existed”. That’s what you responded to.

 

[edwest2]

I did use that word, in the context of my assertion that it “never existed”. That’s what you responded to.

It existed.

Ed

 

[tomarin]

This thread has put me in mind of something which may or may not be related. I’ve been watching a lot of MAS*H lately, and in general I enjoy it but Father Mulcahy is a problematic character for me, because either he is not a very self-aware priest or the writers writing the show don’t know much about Catholicism. He’s obviously meant to be a sympathetic character to a very large extent, and there’s no question that he is a good Christian as well as a self-sacrificing priest but in many instances his instinctual kindness leads him to say or do things that aren’t really Catholic - and he doesn’t seem to feel any regret or discomfort in that, as if he may not even know that they’re not Catholic. There’s one episode in which he marries two people (I think it was Hot Lips Hoolihan and her fiance, Penobscot ((forgot his rank))) who aren’t even Catholic. It’s almost as if the writers don’t know that Catholicism isn’t just another Protestant denomination.

There’s also the fact that as kindly as Father Mulcahy is, there’s something a little nebbishy and unmanly about him, as if one can’t help but expect the cynical world view of the show (the movie was far worse, but still) to take hiim as a chump of some sort. It’s almost as if he’s to be regarded as some sort of eccentric for believing in God in such a seemingly godless place as a war zone.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

This thread has put me in mind of something which may or may not be related. I’ve been watching a lot of MAS*H lately, and in general I enjoy it but Father Mulcahy is a problematic character for me, because either he is not a very self-aware priest or the writers writing the show don’t know much about Catholicism. He’s obviously meant to be a sympathetic character to a very large extent, and there’s no question that he is a good Christian as well as a self-sacrificing priest but in many instances his instinctual kindness leads him to say or do things that aren’t really Catholic - and he doesn’t seem to feel any regret or discomfort in that, as if he may not even know that they’re not Catholic. There’s one episode in which he marries two people (I think it was Hot Lips Hoolihan and her fiance, Penobscot ((forgot his rank))) who aren’t even Catholic. It’s almost as if the writers don’t know that Catholicism isn’t just another Protestant denomination.

There’s also the fact that as kindly as Father Mulcahy is, there’s something a little nebbishy and unmanly about him, as if one can’t help but expect the cynical world view of the show (the movie was far worse, but still) to take hiim as a chump of some sort. It’s almost as if he’s to be regarded as some sort of eccentric for believing in God in such a seemingly godless place as a war zone.

I’ve noticed this too about Father Mulcahy. Even to the point that Sunday services don’t look like Mass at all. I do remember one episode where the characters were all suffering from nightmares, he fell asleep hearing a confession.

As for the wedding, it doesn’t make sense he would be the celebrant. I’m sure Colonel Potter or was it Blake could have done it.