Posted by
USABeliever on Friday, December 01, 2006 4:12:02 PM
Good afternoon! I can say it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post here on Townhall, and I have missed being part of the discussion. But today, I would like to share a letter that I sent to Hugh Hewitt and the two talk show hosts at AM 560, WIND, for the chance to see "The Nativity Story". If you're not sure why this even came about,
read this article first and then
read this update.Before I add my sent comments, let me just say this: had it not been for the weather, I would have placed a large bet on the fact that theater would have been packed. But 6-12 inches of snow within 12 hours will do things like that. If you have not seen this movie, or you don't have it on your watch list - maybe this will make you reconsider. If you have EVER considered the ideas presented behind the reason for Christmas or wanted to see another view, it is worth the viewing of this movie.
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Hugh,
I want to take an opportunity to thank both you and WIND-560 for the chance to see "The Nativity Story" today at 11 am in Chicago. I had originally heard about this a few days ago, when I perused Townhall and found out about this idea. The fact that you were willing to go to these lengths to help display a point to Mayor Daley and the silliness of the pressure on the sponsors of the Christkindlmarket to not allow the displaying of scenes from this movie in the market..
A note about attending to see this movie today - I was disheartened that only 13 people came to see the movie. Five of them had received an email from a friend about this movie screening and drove 3 hours to see it today!! All I have to say to them is what determination!! Another four said they were in school with one of the WIND talk hosts in the morning (Cisco). Another one came in right before the beginning of the movie and the other two - I thought they bought the tickets to see this movie, but again I could be mistaken. Neither the mayor or any of his staff arrived to see the movie. I do understand that there were bad weather conditions this morning until 12 pm, so perhaps he will take you up again on this offer next week. Me personally - I will not hold my breath on it.
Before I mention the movie, I have spent the past few days trying to give my own analysis as to why the pressure may have been given to not advertise this movie inside Christkindmarket. If one was to truly not want to mention something particularly Christian at this marketplace, then first they would have to change the name. They did not do that. The next question I had to ask myself is why there is no mention of a movie in a place that is also allowing
church choirs to sing carols there? Then I read
the following article...So why did they change their reasoning? Because of aggressive marketing? I think I had better give my review on the movie to clear this up.
"The Nativity Story" was a very interesting telling of the birth of Jesus because in my past I have never seen it told in the movies like this before. I found a lot of references to the information I have learned since childhood about how the events ran. I personally had questions about the star's brightness due to Venus, Jupiter and a star all combining for a single moment in history - but that is because I had never heard about this before. A lot of information appears to be taken from knowledge of the culture at the time as well as scripture from the Old and New Testaments. Since this is a movie, there needs to be continuity - and in my opinion the movie tries to downplay the filling of these gaps to ensure that it is more widely accepted. The story may seem a little slow to the younger age, but that's because it has one purpose - to tell a story. I do not mean an action story or a drama - but the story that gives us the reason to celebrate the holiday named for the birth of Christ, to which we now call that day Christmas. But for those of us who both believe and/or debate about religion and theology - the way that "The Nativity Story" fills some of the gaps may be open to debate. I hope it does, and I personally will be doing some additional reading in the days leading up to Christmas.
After seeing the movie and my own analysis of the situation, I have been unable to find a reason why the City of Chicago even had "just cause" to discourage displaying of the scenes from "The Nativity Story" at Chriskindlmarket. For the religious reason has been debunked with proof of not eliminating anything else Christian, while the reason of commercial gain is also debunked. City officials were concerned that this movie would be used only to sell tickets. I can tell you there are many scenes that are VERY low-key that would be a perfect reminder of what Christmas is about, all without an all-out marketing campaign that you may expect from other movies. In short, I would like to see this displayed at the market. My thanks again to Hugh Hewitt and WIND-560 for allowing me and those that braved the weather to view this movie - and for your time to read this brief response.