‘Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour’ Could Usher End Of Faith-Based Films As We Know Them
(ANALYSIS) The box office success of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” has shown that the power of single women is on the rise — and that’s potentially bad news for faith-based films since they largely rely on an audience of married women.
When Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” movie (a recorded version of her live tour of the same name) was announced that it would be shown in theaters this Friday, two movies that initially had planned to open that day immediately changed their release dates.
One of those movies was “Exorcist: Believer”. The other was the highly-anticipated faith-based film by Kingdom Storybook Company (the studio behind “Jesus Revolution”) called “Ordinary Angels”. That faith-based movie was moved all the way to next Feb. 23.
LISTEN: Is This The Year Of Faith-Based Films?
And no wonder. Swift’s “Eras Tour” has already made so much money worldwide that people argued it has almost single-handedly boosted the U.S. economy out of post-pandemic recession. The box office is already pulling in gangbusters numbers, which means it was certainly a very wise move.
Swift’s success — along with movies like “Barbie” (which is the highest-grossing Warner Brothers film ever at over $1.3 billion) — reveal the growing market for movies that appeal to the tastes and preferences of single women. This is great news for single women, who will now get plenty more Hollywood movies made for them than before.
But this is bad news for the present model of faith-based films, which have always had married moms as their target audience. It’s commonly known in the faith-based filmmaking space that married women — and particularly moms — are the main audience that faith-based films are geared toward. That makes sense. Married women are the most religious group in America, both self-reported and their likelihood to actually attend church. As such, they have also been the main audience most likely to go see faith-based films. Married women went to see these movies long before the movies were any good. Without married moms, the faith-based industry wouldn’t exist.
The married mom audience is shrinking. Fewer people are getting married, which means fewer married people, which means fewer married moms, which means a shrinking of the overall faith-based audience.
The rise in remaining single and drop in marriage rates affects movies made for women far more than movies made for men. Why? Because there is a bigger difference between the values of single and married women than there is between single and married men.
We see this in the realm of politics, where women change their political alignment after marriage far more than men do. Single women are typically solidly on the politically left until they get married, when they swing dramatically to the center-right. You can also see this with movies, where men like films such as “Gladiator” and “No Country For Old Men” whether they’re single or married. Single women, on the other hand, prefer sex-positive self-actualization fantasies like “Barbie” and married moms prefer feel-good family values inspirational dramas like, you know, Christian films.
Can the faith-based film industry shift from appealing to married women to single women? It’s highly doubtful. It would require a huge shift in talent and genre that I don’t see evidence for. Certainly, the happily-married, evangelical men who now run the faith-based film industry would be unlikely to do it. There’s also little evidence that single women would be a reliable religious audience even if the industry could pivot. The mainline denominations that have done the most to align themselves with moderate- and left-of-center values that align more with single women — and give women more access to positions of power like the clergy — have also been the churches to suffer the most decline over the last several decades. It’s a consistent irony that as much as people condemn churches that don’t ordain women, the churches that do it tend to have the lowest retention rates.
Is there any future for faith-based films?
Yes.
But not everyone will like the answer: The future of faith-based films is likely with conservative Christian men.
One of the biggest changes in faith-based films over the past couple of years has been the shift from appealing to married Christian women toward conservative men. Outlets like the conservative media company The Daily Wire have started putting out male-appealing, R-rated faith-based action movies like “Shut In” and “Terror on The Prairie” and political documentaries such as “What Is A Woman,” which have helped them grow their platform.
Angel Studios had its first really big theatrical hit with “Sound of Freedom,” a rare PG-13 faith-based action movie that appealed to conservative audiences (and still appealed really strongly to married women). And its next big release is “The Shift,” a faith-based dystopian sci-fi action movie. The Erwin Brothers’ “Kingdom Story Company” is already moving forward with putting a movie about a Christian fallen Navy Seal to the big screen penned by the writer of “American Sniper.
Meanwhile, the newest Christian streaming service to enter the fray is “LOOR,” a very conservative Christian company which makes no bones about how they want to shift the faith-based film industry to the “18-35 male demographic.”
The funny thing is, this shift in audience focus might just work. There’s far more alignment between the tastes and values of Christian married men women than there is between married women and single women. Iit is possible to move over to the new audience while losing minimal numbers of the old.
Further, according to the new book “The Great Dechurching,” non-denominational Christians and and Assembly of God members are the only branches of American Christianity that are growing (and both lean conservative to very conservative). Even evangelicals who are going to church less still align culturally right-of-center. Young men today who are not religious are attracted to the faith-friendly philosophy of people on the right like Jordan Peterson. And both single and married Christian conservative men find the married religious life an aspirational one — as do their wives and children who want them to aspire to that as well.
With Gen Z the first American generation in ages where women don’t outnumber men at church, a “family values conservative Christian men” genre could potentially pull in enough of a coalition of demographics that it might have a real future.
Understandably, not everyone would be happy about this change. Many people feel like Christianity is too aligned with the American political right as it is. And it’s highly likely that a more political faith-based film industry could end up adding fuel to the fire of our divisive politics.
Prior to this, the most political faith-based films (such as the “God’s Not Dead” films) were also the worst. Further, as Nancy Pearcey points out in “The Toxic War on Masculinity,” while evangelical men who go to church regularly are the least toxic, evangelical men who don’t go to church are the most toxic. So a genre that encourages this identity (without the practice) could be dangerous.
Given the fact that the mainline denominations have spent decades losing members faster than conservative evangelicals, they have no one to blame but themselves if that’s where the audience is now.
There could be a silver-lining here. A faith-based film industry that is geared towards, and appealing to, the movie tastes of men (if it manages to avoid its most toxic excesses) may help males capture a vision of faith as something attractive. That could mean that more men may start attending church again.
One big issue with the rise in remaining unmarried and attending church is that most of them don’t want to be single. The church is just overwhelmingly filled with single women with no single men — and so the single women at church can’t find partners who share their values.
This remains a big problem for the future of Christianity because, as pointed out by Lyman Stone in Christianity Today, faith has always come from parents passing it on to their children. In fact, children tend to copy the level of faith-enthusiasm of their fathers more than their mothers.
The popularity of films like Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” and “Barbie” are a sign of changing times for both Hollywood and the faith-based movie industry. Time will tell what this will look like. One thing is for sure: It could mark a new “Era.”
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.