Saved! is an empty, shallow and manipulative film that argues against a theology that is empty, shallow and manipulative. It is obnoxious, annoying and unfair to fundamentalist Evangelical Protestants. Coming from me, this means something because there is almost no religious group that I despise more than Evangelical Protestantism.
The movie wants to be a satire about those obnoxius Christians that give the rest of a bad name- the ones who watch lame movies like Left Behind, speak in tounges, and hate gays. The story is about a teenaged girl named (get ready for some obvious symbolism here) Mary (Tina Majorinio). She finds out that her boyfriend Dean (Chad Faust) is gay. She bumps her head and has a vision from Jesus, who tells to help him. To prove to him that he is straight, she has sex with him, and gets pregnant. The rest of the rest of the movie features her trying to hide her pregancny from the queen of the school (pop star Mandy Moore). Oh, and you can be she learns some very important lessons along the way.
The movie's satire is completly off, because it doesn't understand its target. The problem with Evangelical Prostestants is not that there are bad people- it's that they want to be good and just do what they are told by their minister and greator church leaders, no matter how illogical or hatefull it is. Gay people are deginatorate? Evolution is a lie? The Earth is 6,000 years old? It must be true, because Pastor Joe told me so!
Saved! portrays this group as a bunch of awful people who are just mean. It misses the crucial irony that these are people who do lots of good deeds, or at least think they are doing good deeds, without really thinking about anything, at all. It sets up a villian in the Mandy Moore character, and everything is OK when she is defeated. Suddenly, no one is homophobic and is just fine with a teen pregancy. Right. I doubt even the most liberal parents would be rooting for that.
It goes without saying that the movie is not that funny, and is very, very obnoxious. It did however, leave me with a question with an excellent "would you rather", question You know, one of those questions that gives you options between two horrible alternatives, like "would you rather loose your sense of smell or your sense of taste?". My Saved! question: would you rather spend time with a lot of gullible conservatives who have no grip on reality, or with a bunch of liberal hipsters who think they are smarter and cooler than everybody else?
Saved! (2003)