Good News! The Gospel Coalition’s ‘Best Films of 2023’ Only Features a Bit of Sex and Nudity!
We called out Brett McCracken days ago about his upcoming Best Movies of 2023 list. McCracken is the senior editor and director of communications at The Gospel Coalition and an elder at Southlands Church. His past lists were full of films and media that were absolutely disgusting and perverse, and we were curious if we could expect the same this year.
His previous top 10 movies featured many that were rated ‘R’ for language, violence, and frequently for scenes of sex and nudity. Then he released his top 20 TV shows, and they were also full of sex and nudity, including graphic scenes of homosexuality. He would later suggest that watching this sinful content makes him better at evangelizing.
He’s not alone in this, however. We covered this in the past in our posts:
Rap Artist Lecrae Has Been Watching Some Filthy, Filthy, Fiiiiiiiiilthy TV Shows
‘Holiness’ Author Jackie Hill Perry Revels in Filthy, Filthy, Filthy TV Show
Ruslan Praises Pornographic TV Shows + Says Disagreeing With Him is ‘Low Level Thinking’
Yet in a shocking turn of events, The Gospel Coalition’s new best-of-list contains far less graphic content than previous lists, which included graphic homosexual sex scenes, full-frontal nudity, and tons of naked breasts, and instead just contains regular brief nudity.
Daming with faint praise aside, it’s not completely done away with. One of his favorite films, The Holdovers, is rated R for good reason.
According to Kids in Mind, some of the strong language in the film includes “8 religious profanities (God D-), 14 religious exclamations (e.g. Jesus Christ, God, Holy [scatological term deleted], Christ’s sake) and least 35 F-words, 1 obscene hand gesture, 1 sexual reference, 24 scatological terms, 25 anatomical terms, 13 mild obscenities, derogatory terms for Korean people, 40 name-calling (pain in the[anatomical term deleted], little [anatomical term deleted], lazy vulgar rancid little philistines, walleyed [mild obscenity deleted], reprobates, hidebound, Walleye, foul smelling freak, absurd, calling a teen’s mind a shallow cesspool, dumb, idiot, tool, [F-word deleted] insecure sociopath, entitled little degenerates, big softie, Nazi, crown prince of all the little [anatomical term deleted], fetid layabouts, twisted [F-word deleted], losers, pompous [anatomical term deleted] with a dictator complex, hormonal vulgarian, fancy little [anatomical term deleted], out of your [religious profanity deleted] mind/lost your mind, stupid, little monster, killer, washout, boar, cretin, young vandal, fascist hash factory, uptight, snarling Visigoths, orphan, troglodyte, [anatomical term deleted]cancer in human form), exclamations (jeez, shut-up, stifle it)”
There is still some sexual content, which includes “A teen boy reads a pornographic magazine; we see him open the magazine to a nude image of a woman (her breasts are visible) and an article titled “Kinky Tales.” In a museum, we see a piece of pottery with an explicit depiction of a man and woman having sex (part of the male genitals are visible).” There are also strong sexual references and innuendo throughout.
McCracken still has not released TGC’s best TV shows of 2023, so it is difficult to know if he’s trending less gross and X-rated in his recommendations, or if this happens to be an off-year where the adult content is dialed low but will pick up in 2024.
I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Bonus:
McCracken says these are movies that don’t “confuse the difference between having something to say and telling audiences what to think” and are “artistically excellent.” He previously noted:
“Don’t take my commendations as wholesale endorsements of the content. Just because I loved a film doesn’t mean I loved everything in it, and a “best” movie doesn’t mean an appropriate movie for all audiences. Though the films highlighted below are all in some way edifying—depicting goodness, truth, or beauty in ways Christian viewers can celebrate—a few are rated R and should especially be viewed with caution and discernment.
About Author
Sorry, you lost me at “Gospel Coalition” (better named “Goat Coalition”)…
There’s no denying that Christians watch movies. And, thankfully we have things like VidAngel that filter out the bad content. But the bigger question is, Why even have a list like this at all? What do any of these movies or shows have to do with Christ? As believers, we are to be admonishing each other in the things of God, not the things of the world.