The Movieguide report rates movies using more than two dozen criteria, such as whether a title promotes capitalism or socialism or if it promotes or denigrates biblical principles. Violence, sex, political correctness, revisionist history, environmentalism, feminism, homosexuality and more hot-button political issues all are taken into consideration.
This year’s report concludes that seven of the top 10 films of 2011 scored high on Movieguide’s index and therefore qualify as films with “strong or very strong Christian, biblical, moral and redemptive content.”
Movieguide identified 91 movies in 2011 that scored high in “conservative/moral categories”; these earned an average of $59 million apiece. On the other hand, it identified 105 movies that scored high in “liberal/leftist categories”; each of those titles earned an average of just $11 million.
The average movie scoring four stars from Movieguide earned $53.5 million while the ones that scored just one star earned $10.6 million.
Exceptions abound, of course, notable ones being The Hangover Part II and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, hit movies that earned $581 million and $702 million worldwide, respectively, but are panned by Movieguide as films that promote “fringe worldviews” and “obscene behavior.”
“Most moviegoers want good to conquer evil, truth to triumph over falsehood, justice to prevail over injustice and true beauty to overcome ugliness,” Movieguide editor Ted Baehr writes in the report.
