DVD Double Feature: Jesus Camp and Saved!
Want to see what happens when Christian values turn sinful? Check out these films, which examine adolescent Bible-thumpers in two very different ways. Saved! is a satirical teen movie with a blasphemous twist—its heroine is Mary, a Christ-fearing, high school senior who selflessly sleeps with her boyfriend after he tells her he’s gay. Unfortunately, her plan to save him from a depraved life of homosexuality backfires—his parents send him to a “de-gayification” compound shortly afterwards, and she winds up pregnant and alone.
But the actual young, evangelical Christians who appear in the documentary Jesus Camp (out on DVD this week) probably wouldn’t find the premise of Saved! very amusing. The die-hard tots spend their summers at a place called “Kids on Fire,” which can only be described as a Christian boot camp, designed to carefully mold them into future proselytizers. With scenes of children praying to a cardboard cutout of President Bush, this movie should be immediately followed by the more lighthearted Saved!—if only to rescue your mind from its chilling images.