Silver Bells (GAM017)

## Hosts

Noah Lugeons

Heath Enwright

Eli Bosnick

***Silver Bells*** is the story of a sports news reporter who had some trouble with the law, and then got sentenced to Christianity by a judge, and he tries to find redemption by bell ringing for the Salvation Army. It's that classic Christmas tale of panhandling, flugelhorns, and hating gay people—basically, ninety minutes of porn for Kim Davis.

### **Opening Phrase**

Where each week we watch another selection from Christian cinema, because apparently our suffering amuses you.

### **How Bad Was It?**

So, here's the thing: this movie *itself* is not that bad, unless you realize the context. Because this movie could just be sort of a shitty Christmas movie—and there's some weird stuff, and there's some terrible characters, and we're going to get to them, but this could just be a shitty Christmas movie—if it didn't center around a guy who is court ordered to join a hate group. It's just… because it's like a normal Christmas movie, except the twist is that he has to join the Nazi Youth.

### **Best Worst**

* Noah: ...charity.
* Heath: ...Kim Davis porn.
* Eli: ...fake military orders. ["I'm a colonel!"]

### **Notes**

* Check out the animated version of Noah's "The Truth About the Salvation Army" diatribe.
* As mentioned by Noah, the past "Biblical understanding" of the Salvation Army was that homosexual "practices, if unrenounced, render a person ineligible for Salvation Army soldiership."

### **Jokes**

* "This is almost certainly the best movie we've reviewed, and it's just that one step away from being a bad cheesy Christmas movie, except that the whole thing revolves around the Salvation Army… which is pretty much a fuckin' hate group. So, I put together a few facts here about the Salvation Army that you might find interesting and I think really throws how fucked up this movie is into context: as recently as 2013, the Salvation Army's official website included links to gay conversion therapy centers—they scrubbed those in 2013, they didn't apologize or anything; in 1998 they turned down a three and a half million dollar grant and closed down their programs for the homeless and for senior citizens in San Francisco because a local ordinance would require them to pay benefits to same sex spouses; in 2004 they threatened to close down all their services in New York City over a similar anti-discrimination ordinance; in 1986 the SA in New Zealand collected signatures against the Homosexual Law Reform Act (which by the way, made it legal in New Zealand for men to fuck one another—until then it was illegal, the SA was trying to keep it that way); in 2000 the SA of Scotland submitted a letter to parliament opposing the risk repeal of a law prohibiting schools from teaching that homosexuality was normal; in 2012 (not too long ago) the SA of Burlington, Vermont allegedly fired a case worker for being bisexual; and as recently as 2014 internal documents were leaked explaining why they can't have butt pirates in leadership positions (spoiler alert - it's because of Jesus). So, the Salvation Army, if you look at their website now they have sort of a friendly LGTB page about how 'No, no, that's all just ancient history'—ancient history as in last year. The Salvation Army is trying to present this whole 'Oh, well yeah, back in the day we were bad', but 'back in the day' was this fucking decade. As a matter of fact, *this movie* was almost certainly part of their PR effort to clean up their anti-gay image that was costing them money at the kettle." (2:34)
* If this movie had any balls at all, the dad would have punched the ref. They set it up so that the dad could punch the ref, so the dad would have a *reason* to punch the ref, or you know, hit him in the face with a basketball on purpose. The fact that they made it an accident is such a pussy way to go about getting him into this situation, because the entire movie makes sense… well, it doesn't make sense… much more of the movie makes sense if he just punched the guy. You can't get tried for felony 'accidentally hitting somebody with a basketball lightly while you're not looking.' It's not like when you hit someone with your car by accident—there's no 'manslaughter basketball'—at a certain point the lawn goes 'Yeah no, that's not your fault.' " (36:25)
* Well, I actually have a bunch of ideas as to what could have happened that would have been better when the bag ripped open. So, the first thought, it was: it rips open and it's just spiders… thousands, *millions* of spiders come pouring out into the eyes and the ears of everyone there—the rest of the movie is a horror movie. Second, pulls the bag open: there's a baby! A dead baby inside the bag. Third, final one: opens it… just semen… comes splashing out all over the little girl's hands and her shoes, and then some guy comes forward and says 'My cum collection!' " (1:05:02)

### **Interstitials**

* Vice Admiral Dave and Brigadier General Joe (6:08)
* What the Fuck Is...?: The Salvation Army [The Truth About the Salvation Army] (8:23)
* "I see here you feloniously dribbled a basketball that hit Mr. Johnson in the face.." (1:08:00)

### **Tropes**

* Bad Sportsing
* Crazy Billionaire Money
* Disappointing Christian Celebrity
* Magical Black Person
* Name That Movie
* Not Christian Enough
* Persecuted Christians
* Sentenced to Christianity

### **Links**

* Episode on Audioboom
* Trailer on YouTube
* IMDB