NEW YORK — Are faith-based projects such as “The Chosen” not considered for secular awards because of anti-Christian bias?

Well, it’s complicated. 

The faith-based film industry has been around in its modern incarnation for 20 years now — if you count the start with “The Passion of The Christ” in 2004. And yet, as financially successful as the genre has been, Hollywood award shows like the Oscars and the Emmys haven’t recognized any of the films for awards. 

For many, this is no mystery since faith-based content is so terrible. Christian films, made by the faith-based industry, have long had a reputation of being bad quality. 

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And yet, for many, as the faith-based film industry has gotten better, this has become a less compelling explanation. After all, “The Chosen” — the celebrated TV series about the life of Jesus — has been praised by legendary screenwriter Paul Schraeder himself. So while many (or even most) faith-based films continue to be subpar, it doesn’t seem like all of them are. That’s especially true when you compare them to some of the things that do get nominated for Oscars or Emmys each year.  

Fans of faith-based movie industry typically reject the “low quality” argument and instead blame Hollywood’s bias against faith in general and Christians in particular. But a bunch of Academy Award nominations were given to faith-based films such as “Hacksaw Ridge” and “Killers of The Flower Moon.” Clearly, there is some openness to at least some faith-heavy projects. 

While both of these explanations (lack of quality and anti-Christian bias) certainly play some sort of role in the lack of faith-based representation at mainstream award shows each year, there is a bigger factor at play that gets to the heart of what movies and shows get nominated for major awards. It’s known as “the campaign.”

How award campaigns work 

For a movie to be nominated for awards such as the Emmys or Oscars, or really anywhere, first nominators have to watch the movies. It’s an obvious fact, but one that people often overlook. And just like everyone else, nominators can’t watch every movie that comes out. 

So how do they choose which ones to watch? Well, in many ways the same way everyone else does: what interests them, what their friends tell them to see (or projects their friends have actually been in, which are a lot since they’re in the industry) and what people they respect say is a good movie (such as critics or other industry professionals whom they know). 

This results in a lot of bias toward the tastes and preferences of awards voters that many people have noted for a long time, whether it’s bias toward White and male stories or biases against comedies, blockbusters and animation. 

There’s one big difference between the average viewer and awards show viewers: campaigns. 

At award shows like the Oscars, when a studio thinks they’ve made a movie with a chance to win, they immediately get to work campaigning the voters to cast their ballot for their film. Here’s how to win an Oscar:  

Studios pick their candidates based on “electability” and pour money into them, targeting Oscar voters with ads, mailers, screeners, events, and a lot more. … Electability relies on a number of factors, from whether the movie’s subject matter is likely to appeal to the Academy to the stars’ charisma both onscreen and off. But its most important element — and what every piece of an Oscar campaign is devoted to constructing — is the narrative of Oscar-worthiness around a film.

Movies that get nominated for awards make a lot more money than they did without them. And movies that win make even more. So studios who think they have a movie that has a shot at winning — or being nominated for — awards can be heavily motivated to get the movie in front of the people who make such decisions. It’s not just about money but the respect that comes from making an award-winning film or show.

A strong awards campaign can overcome many of the biases that you see among industry pros. You can see the success of this with something like streaming services. Many industry insiders had a bias against streaming being eligible for awards like the Oscars. Famed film director Steven Spielberg called streaming “TV movies.” But Netflix put a lot of money into pushing its movies at the Oscars, and suddenly its films became top contenders for awards, like “Roma” and “The Irishman.” 

That’s one big reason faith-based films are not likely to win such awards. Their films and shows are not running award campaigns, which means Hollywood insiders are not going to watch their films. And given how secular Hollywood has been and continues to be, most people are never going to see a faith-based film or show if there isn’t a campaign. This is where the secular bias shows up — and it’s less about hatred for faith-based content but more in never seeing them at all.

Boots Riley, director and writer of the film “Sorry to Bother You,” explained that to his fans when they were angry that his movie wasn’t nominated for any award categories at the Oscars.

“The largest factor as to why we didn’t get nominated is that we didn’t actually run a campaign that aimed to get a nomination for Screenplay or Song,” Riley tweeted. “We didn’t buy For Your Consideration ads in the trade magazines and we didn’t service the whole academy with screeners. Without that, it's perceived that you don’t have a chance, or enough buzz.

“Academy members don't just vote for a thing they like if they think it doesn’t have a chance. It’s like that with most voting,” he continued. “That is not to say that we would have gotten a nomination if we had (run a traditional Oscar campaign,) because at that point it becomes about which of the contenders they like the most —it’s just that not doing (a campaign) made it a self-fulfilling prophecy that we wouldn’t get nominated. So I had no actual belief that we would get nominated.”

So why aren’t faith-based films and shows submitting to awards campaigns?

Well, for one thing, Oscar campaigns are very, very expensive. 

In 2016, Variety estimated that studios spend anywhere from $3 million to upwards of $10 million to lobby Oscar voters; according to a 2017 New Yorker story about modern Oscar campaigns, that can run as high as $15 million. Consultants on these campaigns command tens of thousands of dollars for their services, with more in bonuses if their film wins.

Right now, faith-based films don’t have that kind of money. Like Riley said, it’s a partly self-fulfilling prophecy. Most audiences still perceive either faith-based films as too low quality or the Hollywood system too biased against Christians to have a shot anyway. In other words, they don’t see their movie as “electable,” so why bother.  

Shared ‘values’

It’s not like Christian audiences don’t have reason to believe they wouldn’t have an uphill battle. As critic Alissa Wilkinson points out, much about how campaigns work is by telling academy members a story and how what the film they voted for says about their values. 

Academy voters have the sense that the films, performances, and filmmaking they choose to reward are a reflection of the industry’s values … with #OscarsSoWhite barely in the rearview mirror and #MeToo very much ongoing. An industry trying to present itself as becoming progressively more inclusive and open-minded — and maybe more inclusive and open-minded than America at large — is more likely to seriously consider some films that might have been pushed to the side in the past.

Because Hollywood and faith-based audiences are so culturally opposed, it’s easy to imagine many voters would feel like they were betraying their values by endorsing a film with Christian or religious themes. 

It’s the case particularly if the actors or director were openly politically conservative. (Think Jim Cavizel preaching QAnon conspiracy theories in the lead-up to the release of “Sound of Freedom”). 

“Killers of The Flower Moon” is a religious film, but it’s primarily about the oppression of the Osage tribe. “Hacksaw Ridge” is also faith-based, but it also features a personal redemption story for Mel Gibson. In order to have a chance at winning, a faith-based Oscar or Emmy campaign would have to pitch the movie as actually representing Hollywood’s values. In return, such a move might actually put the film under suspicion by the faith-based audience, which sees its values and Hollywood’s at odds.

Will faith-based programming ever win awards? 

Could they? What if faith-based films did the following: 

— Make enough money. 

— Become critically acclaimed.  

— Be mainstream enough that Christians could imagine it was worth pursuing an Oscar campaign. 

As “The Chosen” has shown, that’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. Kingdom Storybook Company is a studio that is growing in quality and making movies that are getting growing critical acclaim and isn’t overtly political or offensive to Hollywood’s beliefs. 

But it’s not clear that’s what the faith-based audience really wants. The faith-based film industry has always pitched itself as an alternative competitor to Hollywood — even potentially a replacement.

They see Hollywood as, in some real sense — as my “Overthinkers” podcast co-host Nathan Clarkson wrote in “Finding God in Hollywood” — a modern-day Babylon. Platforms like Great American Pure Flix, Angel Studios and The Daily Wire appeal to faith-based audiences on this basis. Christians are even more scared of cancellation over having the wrong political views these days, which is why books like Aaron Renn’s “Life In the Negative World” are advising Christians to put even more focus on building counter-institutions. 

It’s a sign of progress that people can even ask the question as to whether a faith-based film will ever compete at a place like the Oscars. It remains to be seen whether that’s something the industry will even pursue if it ever gets such an opportunity.

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.