How is religion portrayed in films? Is Hollywood getting it right?

As a person of deep faith and a journalist interested in people of other faiths, I have long been interested in how religion is portrayed across different forms of media. This interest became stronger when my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, received a great deal of attention in recently released TV shows, movies, and a slightly older Broadway show.

There was the Broadway musical, “The Book of Mormon” — which you may be surprised to learn has nothing to do with the actual Book of Mormon.

There are “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” — and many of them have ties to the Church of Jesus Christ.

And then, in 2022, came “Under the Banner of Heaven” — which was mostly about a fundamentalist sect but included several religiously affiliated characters.

Such performances have always seemed strange to me, familiar and strange at the same time. I’ve wondered if others feel this way about media that focuses on their religion.

So I watched movies and TV shows depicting other religious traditions with practicing members of those religious traditions and asked them what they thought.

Muslim reaction to ‘Little Mosque on the Prairie’ and ‘Mrs. Marvel’

Saad Malik grew up in Pakistan and lived there until he came to Canada and then to the United States.

The comedy show Little Mosque on the Prairie is set in the same Canadian province where Malik lived when he left Pakistan.

As we watched it together, I shifted uncomfortably in my chair when the first scene showed a young imam — a Muslim religious leader — preparing to board a flight at the airport.

The character Ammar Rashid is on the phone with his mother at the gate. During the call, he said plans for him to take on a new role had been in place for months and it wasn’t as if he had “dropped a bomb” — a statement that sparked a nervous reaction from passengers and airport security.

The joke, of course, was that Muslim men could not point out bombs at the airport without arousing suspicion. As the scene was unfolding, I glanced at Malik’s facial expression because I wondered if this would be offensive to him. I was uncomfortable, but he seemed unfazed.

Malik later told me that it was common for shows to use negative stereotypes about his culture and religion because “that gets attention, and that’s what people want to watch.”

“The truth is somewhere in the middle, and that’s boring,” he said.

He also stressed that “faith and culture are not the same thing.”

“It is important to remember that when certain people are portrayed in films, it is often because of culture rather than faith,” he said.

I found a more accurate portrayal of Muslim life in the Disney+ show “Ms. Marvel,” which I watched with Aneeqa Nawaz.

Nawaz is a practicing Muslim who lives in Salt Lake City. She moved to the United States in the late 1990s shortly after marrying her husband in Pakistan.

In the series, the family of the main character, Kamala Khan, is also from Pakistan.

While the basic premise of the series is clearly fictional, much of her family’s Islamic traditions are not. Artwork of religious symbols and writing can be seen in the background of the family home, and the display includes scenes from the local New York mosque and other religious references.

Khan is shown participating in the spiritual ritual of washing herself before entering a mosque to pray, an act called “ablution,” and then dressing in clothing that covers her from head to toe.

“While praying, you have to cover every hair,” Nawaz said.

She pointed out that “Mrs. Marvel” depicts a “very conservative” Muslim family, and this is not the only way to practice Islam.

“If someone doesn’t know any Muslim families here and sees this, they must think, ‘Oh my God, these people are so conservative,’ and I didn’t like that idea at all,” Nawaz said.

Wiccans’ reaction to “The Enchanted” and “The Good Witch”

Heading into this project, Wicca was the faith I knew the least about. She linked it to rumors of witches who practiced black magic in a volatile and depressing manner.

But Leslie Hugo quickly dispelled that stereotype when we met because she is one of the kindest people I have ever known.

Hugo and I had a great time on the first day of spring, also known as the vernal equinox. It is a holy day of the year for Wiccans because it marks the beginning of a new season and an opportunity to set new intentions. She told me that earlier in the day she had celebrated by planting seeds to represent her new goals.

Hugo told me that she first embraced the Wiccan faith during an introduction to a Universal Church, and eventually went to school to become a High Priestess and ordained minister of a Witchcraft Temple.

Her self-described “witch” practice focuses on nature, not the type of activities witches are often associated with.

“I wish more people understood that Wicca is about all forms of life,” Hugo said. “The creative spirit, whether you call it a god or goddess, God, or a great spirit, is present in all of life.”

As Hugo and I watched the reboot of Charmed on Netflix, I surmised that the show wouldn’t fit her description of her faith.

Hugo agreed that the magic in “Charmed” didn’t fit with her experience, but it’s not entirely wrong, she said.

“Obviously you want to make it more exciting for people to want to watch it,” Hugo said. “This is all of Hollywood,” she pointed at the television. But there is a little truth there.”

The show contains something called the Book of Shadows, a spell book written by the mother of the three main characters and passed down to them after she died unexpectedly. The book contains all the spells and family secrets.

Hugo said that’s “wonky,” but it’s not entirely wrong.

Such books do exist, she said, but they are “essentially a witch’s diary.” “You write all your notes there, and you can write down dreams or visions you’ve had, or your spells for things you know have worked in the past.”

At one point in “Charmed,” the wizards’ teacher says that they will need to embrace their powers and talents to make the world a better place. “Honestly, that’s what most of us think we’re here to do,” Hugo told me.

True Eastman shared similar sentiments when we watched Good Witch, about Cassie Nightingale, a witch who owns a herbal and tonic shop in a small town.

Coincidentally, Truman said that others had told her that she reminded them of Nightingale, and that their physical resemblance was truly uncanny—they both had the same shade of black hair and olive skin. Eastman said the similarities go beyond the physical, because she matches who Nightingale aspires to be on the show.

“Cassie Nightingale has that intuition,” Eastman said. “She uses her faith and love to impact people and puts her energy into something that produces good results. She truly does it to help humanity, she doesn’t do it for personal gain.”

“I agree with that,” she added.

Nightingale and Eastman’s approach to life embodies Wiccan doctrine – a doctrine to which many followers adhere – “Do as you will, but do no harm.”

Eastman believes that magic requires real work, including deep self-work. It’s not something that just happens when you shake your nose.

It acknowledges that there is a dark side to the doctrine where people abuse power for selfish reasons, but it is usually blown out of proportion in the mainstream media.

“Popular culture likes to make it more exciting than it actually is,” she said. “It’s always about good versus evil.”

Latter-day Saint Response to “Under the Banner of Heaven”

Kirsty Cawley started watching “Under the Banner of Heaven” in the summer of 2022 because it was a series about her home state, Utah, and her church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But when I heard that the church’s sanctuary — and its sacred rituals — were featured in the series, I stopped watching.

Her decision to stop the series came about a year before I asked her to watch the second episode with me. She agreed because she was still curious about how accurately she was showing her faith and if it was as bad as she had heard.

As we watched, we sat mostly in silence except for the occasional chuckle when familiar words were used, such as “Relief Society,” “CTR ring,” and “Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”

Finally, Cowley opened the curtains, allowing light — and reality — back into the room.

She told me that she felt like she was watching the two opposites of her religion play out together on the big screen. On the one hand, there were people affectionately calling everyone “brother” and “sister” and pictures of the Relief Society — made up of women from the local Latter-day Saint community — rushing in with large platters of food in times of need. On the other side, the darkest interpretations of our shared faith emerged.

She felt that “parts of religion” were used to “make it more poignant.”

She also took issue with how the show uses words like “heck” and “dang” to highlight Latter-day Saints’ supposed tendency to avoid curses.

“They were emphasizing the use of the word ‘heck’ and those types of words,” Cawley said. “Which I think is a stereotype.”

Catholic reaction to “Father Stu”

Sometimes it seems like the film industry gets religion right, but only when it really tries. This was the case with the movie “Father Stu,” which I watched with Simon Falk.

The film, released in 2022, is based on the true story of Stuart Long, played by Mark Wahlberg, a former boxer who underwent a dramatic transformation in the 1990s, becoming a priest and serving in several parishes in Montana.

Unlike Long, Falk was born and raised in the Catholic Church. Falk trained for the priesthood, and although he later dropped out, he remained a devout Catholic attending Madeleine Cathedral in Salt Lake City and working in its youth program.

“In a way, his story is kind of my story, but my story is not dramatic,” Falk said, noting that he gradually became more interested in his church as he got older.

“Before I took my faith seriously, I wasn’t an alcoholic or a boxer,” he said.

“Father Stu” included popular Catholic things like rosary beads, Mass, and Sunday school — all of which Falk said were depicted almost identically to his experiences in the faith.

He said the accuracy may have to do with Wahlberg, a devout Catholic, and the fact that it is based on a true story. Falk was surprised by how much he saw himself and his faith reflected in the film.

He gave “Father Stu” 9 out of 10 stars for accuracy.

How accurate is Faith’s appearance on television and in movies?

I asked everyone I was involved in this project to use this classification system.

“The former means that this was nowhere near anything you believe or experience,” she explained. “Ten is a perfect depiction of how to live your faith every day.”

So the Falk 9 rate was very high.

Cowley gave “Under the Banner of Heaven” 4 out of 10 for its depiction of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Malik gave “Little Mosque on the Prairie” a score of 3, the same score Nawaz gave to “Ms. Marvel.”

Hugo gave “Charmed” only 2 stars out of 10 for how it related to her experience with Wicca. Eastman vacillated between giving “Good Witch” a score of 6 or 7.

These reviews show that the film industry is rarely a good place to meet people of true faith. But I think this probably should have been obvious from the beginning.