This weekend while the heavy hitters in the entertainment industry will gather to celebrate one another at the 86th Annual Academy Awards, many others around America will gather with their families to celebrate the faithful few by tuning into Movieguide’s Faith & Values Awards Gala. This awards gala celebrates the work of people who create “family-friendly movies and television shows as well as the most moral and Christ-centered films for mature audiences.” Driven by the mantra, “Change the channel and help change the culture,” the MovieGuide Awards Gala sends a message to Hollywood that there is demand for faith-based programming on both the big and small screens. In fulfilling that demand by creating more God-inspired and faithful content, culture can be changed for the better.
MovieGuide has worked to fulfill this mission of drawing attention to faith-based programming since 1985, a time when there weren’t many movies aimed at families. Over the years things have gotten better. Since 1993 family-friendly and Christian movies tripled while the number of R-rated movies declined. For instance, last year only six of the Top 25 highest grossing movies in the box office were R-rated films, yet these statistics don’t mean that all is well. With the prevalence of reality television programming that exalts physical and verbal violence as well as a high-level of materialism, the MovieGuide Awards counter that increasingly dominant narrative to show the industry at large that there is demand for better programming.
This year the awards show will air on the Reelz channel on March 1st at 2PMEST/11AMPacific. Some of the nominees this year include “Black Nativity,” “Frozen,” and “Linsanity,” for Best Family Films; “42,” “Captain Phillips,” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” for Best Mature Audience Films; and “The Bible,” “The Cross,” and “Last Man Standing: Back to School” in the Epiphany Prize Television category. Actors such as Forest Whittaker, Sandra Bullock, and Harrison Ford are also among the nominees in the Grace Award Movies category.
We here at UrbanFaith don’t take lightly the influence that entertainment can have on young people in particular and people in general. It is for that reason that we affirm the work that MovieGuide is doing. We hope that you will tune in on Saturday to celebrate that work and share news of the Awards Gala airing with your friends and family.
The MovieGuide Awards Gala will air on Saturday, March 1 at 2PMEST/11AMPST. To find out what channel The Movieguide Awards will be on in your area, click here.