The Secret Life of Bees
Headline: ** False Idol Worship **
Title: THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES
Quality: * * Acceptability: -4
SUBTITLES: None
WARNING CODES:
Language: LLL
Violence: VV
Sex: S
Nudity: N
RATING: PG-13
RELEASE: October 17, 2008
TIME: 110 minutes
STARRING: Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keyes, Sophie Okonedo, Paul Bettany, Nate Parker, and Tristan Wilds
DIRECTOR: Gina Prince-Bythewood
PRODUCERS: Lauren Shuler Donner, James Lassiter, Will Smith, and Joe Pichirallo
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Jada Pinkett Smith
WRITER: Gina Prince-Bythewood
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY: Sue Monk Kidd
DISTRIBUTOR: Fox Searchlight Pictures
CONTENT: (PaPaPa, FRFRFR, FeFe, PCPC, B, C, LLL, VV, S, N, M) Very strong, slightly mixed, pagan worldview with very strong false religious doctrine that makes a totem out of the Virgin Mary in a heretical way, implicitly replacing Mary with Jesus Christ in three scenes or so, with a feminist subtext and a politically correct negative view of Southern white males, mitigated slightly by some moral and Christian elements, including a barely heard mention of Jesus during a prayer at the foot of a carving meant to represent the Virgin Mary; 18 obscenities, 11 strong profanities and three light profanities; brief strong violence such as man beats, punches and kicks black woman, married couple fight and it is implied that child accidentally shoots her mother to death during fight when she picks up gun her mother dropped, implied beating of black teenage boy, white men forcibly remove black teenage boy from movie theater when he's caught sitting with white teenage girl, drowned body of suicide victim is found and cannot be revived, and father makes teenage daughter kneel on uncooked grits, which leaves her knees with red scrapes; no sex scenes but husband falsely thinks wife is cheating on him and father warns teenage daughter about getting pregnant when he finds her in a field late at night, plus 14-year-old girl kisses slightly older teenage boy; brief upper male nudity; no alcohol; no smoking; and, lying and woman says, "There is no perfect love," which is false.
GENRE: Drama
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Older teenagers and adults
Please address your comments to:
Peter Rice, President
Fox Searchlight Pictures
20th Century Fox Film Corp.
A division of Fox, Inc. and News Corp.
10201 West Pico Blvd., Bldg. 38
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Phone: (310) 369-1000
Fax: (310) 369-2359
Website: www.foxsearchlight.com
SUMMARY: In THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, set in 1964, a 14-year-old white Southern girl who accidentally killed her mother 10 years ago, finds emotional, spiritual healing in the Virgin Mary and her mother's wise, friendly black nanny. THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES is one-dimensional, includes a significant amount of strong profanities, and contains a heretical, abhorrent, paganized view of the Virgin Mary.
IN BRIEF:
In THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, a 14-year-old white Southern girl who accidentally killed her mother 10 years ago, runs away from her abusive father in 1964. With the family's black maid in tow after she was beaten by racists, Lily heads for her mother's hometown. There, she runs into her mother's black nanny, August Boatright. August runs a honeybee farm with her two sisters. Eventually, the secrets of the past come out. Racism rears its ugly head again, however, when Lily becomes interested in the black teenager who helps August tend the bees.
THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES lays on its righteous indignation against white racism a bit too thickly. The white Southern males are almost portrayed as dumb and mean as they possibly can be. Even worse is the heresy the movie teaches. Lily eventually learns that the Boatwright sisters and their female friends pray to a wooden, Africanized carving of the Virgin Mary. Then, after the movie's happy resolution, Lily says that the Virgin Mary is "inside" her. Effectively, the filmmakers have replaced Jesus Christ with Mary. This is an abhorrent, offensive heresy.
NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr, publisher of Movieguide Magazine. For more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest Movieguide Magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org. Movieguide is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. Movieguide now offers an online subscription to its magazine version, atwww.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers.
