Although the fact that December 25 has not yet been firebombed off the calendar proves Kirk Cameron did, in fact, save Christmas this year, like any martyr who requires martyrdom in order to be regarded as such, he has not been without his enemies. Indeed, Cameron has spent the past month fending off not only radical Muslims and radical, non-pie-baking women, but that other, longstanding threat to Christmas spirit: movie critics.
After many of these Pharisees condemned Cameron’s Saving Christmas for not adhering to their ancient, strict tradition that movies shouldn’t be terrible, Cameron climbed the heaping mount that is his Facebook page and delivered one of his most impassioned sermons yet, urging his followers to “storm the gates” of Rotten Tomatoes, and answer their 0 percent critical rating with the awesome power of an anonymous user review.
Cameron’s righteous holy war to get a little cartoon tomato briefly worked, raising the Saving Christmas audience rating all the way to 94 percent—or so Cameron claimed in a since-deleted follow-up post. But recognizing that one of the key tenets of Christianity is a continued sense of persecution, Cameron also warned of “haters and atheists” who were already attempting to undo his good, dubiously ethical works, dropping the rating through their own organized attacks:
You are A M A Z I N G! You just drove the Rotten Tomato rating to an all-time, soaring high of 94%!
Now the haters and atheists are coming out of the woodwork, attempting to hammer your good work (they rallied to drop your rating super low). They are attempting, once again, to ruin Saving Christmas for everyone. Look at their language, vulgarity, and spirit of hate. They can try to ruin a rating, but they can’t stop you from going with family and friends to see Saving Christmas this weekend! If people continue to turn out, the theaters will hold the movie longer. YOU have the power, just like with Rotten Tomatoes, to keep Saving Christmas in the theaters.
Your support sends a very loud message. Films like Soul Surfer, God’s Not Dead, Courageous and Saving Christmas are small lights in a dark world. Together, let’s light up movie theaters this weekend and remind everyone this Christmas of the true reason for the season. Together, they can’t stop us! Are you with me??
In the end, Cameron’s calculated attempt to provoke the trolls brought the Saving Christmas audience rating down to 32 percent, allowing Cameron to point to those trolls he provoked to rally his followers, as evidence that “saving Christmas” is necessary. Truly, Kirk Cameron’s is a harrowing tale of martyrdom, much like when Jesus Christ himself carried the cross to Calvary while saying, “Hey, I bet you guys can’t nail me to this thing.”
And now that tale continues well beyond the gates of Rotten Tomatoes, all the way to the great walls of Jericho that are IMDb—crumbled now by the thousand trumpeting farts that have made Saving Christmas the lowest-rated movie on the site. With an aggregate user review of 1.3 stars, Kirk Cameron’s story of how Jesus was born so that man could have a hip-hop dance party is currently ranked below other stories of suffering such as the Paris Hilton parable The Hottie & The Nottie and Manos: The Hands Of Fate. As Raw Story notes, even Leonard Part 6—a movie reviled even before its star became accused repeatedly of sexual assault—nearly doubles its rating. Indeed, it seems audiences would prefer their ’80s TV stars turn to rape rather than religion.
Nevertheless, Kirk Cameron will persevere, as his faith and his monetizing of that faith demand it. Not only is Saving Christmas being expanded to 100 more theaters this weekend, putting the Christ back in “Christ, there’s nothing good playing,” now it’s even expanding to your kitchen. Cameron is introducing a limited-edition Saving Christmas coffee, asking, “What better way to promote this bold declaration of the Christ of Christmas, than with a coffee as bold as Kirk’s witness and as warm and friendly as this Christmas season?”
And while the answer has normally been, “Probably some way that doesn’t involve a cup of coffee,” Cameron, as always, “thinks differently.” He wants to put the “Jesus” back in “Jesus, this coffee is terrible” with his own mocha java blend of African earthiness, Indonesian sweetness, and all-American smugness, “meant to be brewed in large quantities and shared with family and friends,” as you sit around filling yourselves with the warm sensation of slow-drip sanctimony. Failing that, of course, you can also make a nice, hot mug of it to throw in the face of nonbelievers.