Could Hollywood entice younger audiences by having a little faith? A surprising new Future of Faith study from The Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS) at UCLA suggests that both Gen Z and Gen Alpha crave realistic and complex depictions of religion and spirituality in their entertainment that go beyond stereotypes. The group surveyed over 2,000 people, ages 14-24, and a majority cited a sensitivity to how their beliefs were portrayed on-screen.
Respondents weren’t shy in suggesting they thought Hollywood could do a better job with well-rounded depictions of faith and spirituality that didn’t veer into stereotype. Uhls, Ph.D., in an interview with Variety about the findings. But that’s one of the things they complained about: there’s a lot of performative religion and policing from their faith groups online.
They want to be able to have honest discussions.” Uhls, the senior author of the study, is a professor in UCLA’s psychology department, and previously worked for nearly two decades as a senior executive at studios like MGM and Sony. Her background makes her confident that developing spirituality-forward storylines could help the entertainment industry engage with younger audiences. Given the turnout at the Aug. 5 CSS event The Future of Faith, where the findings were presented, Hollywood is listening.
We were talking about that. They’re all exploring it. Lionsgate has several movies around this.
They see purely religious movies make a lot of money with that very specific audience, but I think there’s opportunity to integrate it into different divisions — not just the faith division.” Uhls says respondents cited numerous series and films they believed were positive examples of what they were looking for, including films like “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” “Over the Moon” and “Bend It Like Beckham,” as well as series like “Mo,” “The Good Place,” “Ms. Marvel” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” Yet the story also doesn’t have to depict the religious elements reverentially for it to be seen as impactful. Uhls points to the Netflix series “Unorthodox,” about a woman who leaves her Orthodox Jewish community to start life over, as a prime example.
He left the faith, but he went through a very long period questioning it. He still is very spiritual. He said he went back to the Bible and read it and felt like, ‘Wow, there’s stuff in here that I can relate to,’ but it wasn’t reflected in the religious structure of the Mormon faith.
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