It's Your Decision if you want to Rock or not, and this movie wants you to decide not to.
The setup itself sounds like a dare to the viewers. Jeff likes rock music, but is challenged by his preacher to give it up for a week, and research why rock is so bad. He takes him up on that offer, doing what viewers would likely not do.
Along the way, he transforms into the negative stereotype that the non-religious sometimes have of Christians: pushy, intolerant, obnoxious, no fun to be around, and paranoid. No, I've never met any Christians like that. The Christians I know personally are pretty chill. But this is a Christian-made production, and I'd imagine this is not the best way for them to choose to portray themselves.
Despite being a 1980s production, Jeff mentions being hassled because he's a Christian. Poor Jeff, if only he lived in 2010s America, where despite Christians being "only" 83% of the population, less than in the 1980s, there's stories of harassment of non-Christians. Though he'd probably feel oppressed anyway, due to his newfound paranoia.
This paranoia extends to Jeff freaking out over the fact that he was in a mall where rock music was playing, and the poor guy felt compelled to dance along with it, almost as if it's catchy- I mean, almost as if he's being possessed.
As Jeff becomes increasingly obnoxious, he begins alienating everyone around him, as he's unable to convince them to give up their rock music and join him in aural celibacy, and no-one likes his new "be just like me or else" attitude. Considering the ostensible message of the film, it presumably thinks that Jeff's behavior is a good thing. Instead, I could easily see this film as a cautionary tale of a different kind: how being an asshole can ruin your life.
The movie ends with Jeff demonstrating his lack of knowledge of rock music, as he preaches to his classmates and tells them to reject the music based on little more than the titles of the songs. Somehow he misses the point that many of the songs actually condemn evil (e.g. "Your Evil Ways" has the lyric "You've got to change your evil ways"), and even songs like "Sympathy for the Devil" portray the devil negatively. But realizing that would have required, I suppose, actually listening to the songs.
It's a confused film that manages to get its message backwards.
Film Accomplishes if anything, the opposite of what it set out to do
It's Your Decision if you want to Rock or not, and this movie wants you to decide not to.
The setup itself sounds like a dare to the viewers. Jeff likes rock music, but is challenged by his preacher to give it up for a week, and research why rock is so bad. He takes him up on that offer, doing what viewers would likely not do.
Along the way, he transforms into the negative stereotype that the non-religious sometimes have of Christians: pushy, intolerant, obnoxious, no fun to be around, and paranoid. No, I've never met any Christians like that. The Christians I know personally are pretty chill. But this is a Christian-made production, and I'd imagine this is not the best way for them to choose to portray themselves.
Despite being a 1980s production, Jeff mentions being hassled because he's a Christian. Poor Jeff, if only he lived in 2010s America, where despite Christians being "only" 83% of the population, less than in the 1980s, there's stories of harassment of non-Christians. Though he'd probably feel oppressed anyway, due to his newfound paranoia.
This paranoia extends to Jeff freaking out over the fact that he was in a mall where rock music was playing, and the poor guy felt compelled to dance along with it, almost as if it's catchy- I mean, almost as if he's being possessed.
As Jeff becomes increasingly obnoxious, he begins alienating everyone around him, as he's unable to convince them to give up their rock music and join him in aural celibacy, and no-one likes his new "be just like me or else" attitude. Considering the ostensible message of the film, it presumably thinks that Jeff's behavior is a good thing. Instead, I could easily see this film as a cautionary tale of a different kind: how being an asshole can ruin your life.
The movie ends with Jeff demonstrating his lack of knowledge of rock music, as he preaches to his classmates and tells them to reject the music based on little more than the titles of the songs. Somehow he misses the point that many of the songs actually condemn evil (e.g. "Your Evil Ways" has the lyric "You've got to change your evil ways"), and even songs like "Sympathy for the Devil" portray the devil negatively. But realizing that would have required, I suppose, actually listening to the songs.
It's a confused film that manages to get its message backwards.