MovieChat Forums > God Is Not Dead (2013) Discussion > Astonishingly racist film (spoilers I su...

Astonishingly racist film (spoilers I suppose)


One afternoon I thought I'd watch this film since I am a professor (of medieval history and literature, not philosophy, and I never, ever ask students to debate the existence of god, Christian or any other version, or any of the other behaviors that this "professor" exhibited). A student from an evangelical Christian background recommended it to me, so I gave it a shot. The film is disappointingly absurd on a number of levels; I don't even want to go into the horrendously flawed presentation of philosophic thought and the absurd behavior of the philosophy professor who allows a student to run his class for weeks when the course is an Intro to Philosophy. The professor should have been dismissed for not teaching content appropriate to the rubric. And apparently only Christians are capable of moral behavior, etc as when these "topics" are presented to the class only the Christian god is mentioned. The student shouting at the professor and belittling him in front of the class until the prof confesses his psychological hang ups?! The students standing up and saying "god is not dead" repeatedly like robots? Ugh. Just silly.

But what truly troubled me was the profound racism in the film, a deep racism that ran throughout the film in its insensitive and clunky treatment of among others the "Asian student" who is told by his father to think whatever the professor thinks regarding god, since apparently Asians have no rich religious history of their own and are simply robots unless an evangelical Christian student talks to them about the evangelical Christian version of god. No Buddhism, no Hinduism, on and on. Only the evangelical Christian god "exists" in this film. And I emphasize evangelical as this is not the Catholic approach to this material or to the religious beliefs of others. And the young Muslim woman and her violent father? Oh that was just cringeworthy. Truly cringeworthy.

"Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys! I am talking about the central nervous system!"

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You're an idiot. Kill yourself.

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I agree the film has some stereotypes. But the goal of this film is to promote Christianity, not other faiths. The budget therefore is miniscule compared to that of the Hollywood standard we've become accustomed to.

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