03.26
You know those shitty Christian propaganda cartoons used by fellas like Kirk Cameron to brainwash their children? Well, today we’re going to analyze one! So grab your popcorn and your Bible, ‘cuz it’s time to get downright sacrilegious in this motherfucker!
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. You know how “thou shalt not steal” is one of those Ten Commandment doohickeys? Well, there’s absolutely no way I’d ever pay money for this awful cartoon, so I watched it on YouTube instead of buying it. Wait, is streaming stealing? …It technically isn’t? Well, then disregard my confession, Father. Have a lovely day!
The Pilgrim’s Progress
The opening text of Baptista Films’ 1978 epic promises “the best in full action animation production.”
Yeah, no.
And if the video’s opening text is such a blatant lie, then how can the audience possibly be expected to believe in the authenticity of the presented story?
Anyway, the cartoon opens with some generic gospel music. WHAT A SURPRISE. From there, the narrator begins telling us about John Bunyan’s “literary and religious masterpiece” which apparently “ranked second to The Bible as the world’s bestseller.” Forgive me if I seem skeptical, but I doubt that any intricate literature sales records were kept in and preserved from the 1600’s, so I’m inclined to believe that the narrator is simply pulling this “fact” out of his ass.
Our story begins with a man named Christian (subtle) melodramatically lamenting that his city is too sinful and, because of this, will be “burnt with fire.” I’m not sure what else you could burn a city with, but whatever. Some ugly elves overhear his anguished rantings and sensibly assume that the man is spewing forth some kind of crazy gibberish. Then everybody laughs at him unconvincingly. His feelings clearly hurt, Christian departs immediately from the city, valiantly leaving his wife and children behind to presumably be burnt to death in the anti-sin fire. What a great father.
On his journey, Christian meets an albino named Evangelist who tells him to walk toward the sun and then knock on some gates. Hobbling forth on his merry way, he is stopped by a total douche and a drooling manchild (named Obstinate and Pliable, respectively) who try to get him to come back to the city with them. Well, Obstinate tries, anyway… Pliable just kinda’ stands there and picks his nose until he eventually decides to join Christian on his quest. They immediately take off, leaving Obstinate behind. Christian explains the goal of his adventure to Pliable, who moves by hunching over and swimming through the air.
Pliable's walk cycle truly must be seen to be believed.
The pair decide to go for a leisurely swim in the swamp, and Pliable’s horrifyingly slow yet slurred diction serves as both accidental nightmare fuel and a grim reminder that the exact same person did the voice acting for every character in this production. He then runs away for some reason. Evangelist teleports in to explain that the disgusting slough is basically just an allegory for people who aren’t completely faithful Christians. At least, that’s what it sounds like. Which I suppose makes sense in the context of this story.
Venturing to the top of a hill, Christian meets Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who informs him that going to the Wicket Gate is totally bogus and filled with bad vibes. He advises Christian to head for the town of Morality instead, where he knows some men who can help get him off and do things with his load. Or something like that. At this point, the animation becomes even choppier than before, sometimes using still frames in lieu of actually bothering to make the characters move. And we’re only 9 minutes in!
As Christian prepares to enter Morality, it is suddenly set aflame. Apparently the lawfully good and morally sound people of the town weren’t religious enough, so they deserved to die. Glad to see justice was served! Evangelist shows up again to call Christian a dumbass. He begs Evangelist to give him another chance… and then the video cuts out and accidentally plays the scene where the town burns down again while the visual quality shits its britches.
Disneyesque.
“Your sin is great!” Evangelist tells him cheerfully, and then disappears. When Christian finally reaches the gate, he meets Goodwill, who explains that Beelzebub is a serious prick that just sits up in his castle all day shooting arrows at innocent passersby. He then tells our hero to walk down a long narrow path, cluing him in to the fact that “the right are straight.” There is a sudden jump cut, and Christian is now in The Interpreter’s house. This man ushers him to a “private room” where he “shows him many things.” After that, Christian sets off again filled with more vigor than before. This seems to completely contradict Goodwill’s earlier statement.
According to the narrator, Christian begins to run down the path at this point, but the animation itself shows him as moving at a snail’s pace. Christian, upon reaching the cross where Jesus Christ was crucified, is brought to the realization that Christ’s horrific death was the fault of both him and many others like him, so he kneels down and prays for about a minute. He doesn’t get too into it, though, so it can only be assumed that Christian doesn’t really give a shit and is in this entirely for his own personal gain. Oh, and I hope you like bad gospel music.
The scene lingers on this still shot for about 30 seconds, then spends another 30 seconds zooming out. There is no real animation whatsoever.
The “Shining Ones” show up and tell him that his sins are forgiven. So the cartoon’s over now, right? Wrong! We’re only just getting started. Christian continues his journey to the Celestial City, and encounters three guys sleeping on the grass along the way. Since this is clearly against the nature preserve’s sanitation codes, he decides to wake the fellows up and get them back on the road. He does this by gently caressing one of the men’s faces and then grabbing another by the hair and repeatedly slamming the poor guy’s head against his own chest. They don’t wake up, and the scene abruptly ends.
Fade in on two bumbling idiots named Formalist (who wears a gothic lolita dress) and Hypocrisy (who is basically Obstinate with different clothing) hopping over a stone wall. Formalist explains that walking to the Wicket Gate would have taken too long, so he considered climbing the wall to be the best option. The audio here is very choppy and obviously spliced together from two very different takes of the same line reading. To be fair, I am, quite frankly, impressed that this is actually the first instance of such a problem occurring in Baptista’s <$50 budget production. Ending the dialogue there, Formalist and Hypocrisy both take wrong turns on the path, so the former becomes lost for all eternity and the latter dies. Our God sure is merciful, huh?
Two hilariously animated and deathly afraid people run into the shot and warn Christian about some lions up ahead with the beautifully-written line, “we know not if they slept or not.” Christian approaches the lions, which look suspiciously like panthers, and then the scene immediately ends. It doesn’t cut to black or fade out or anything, it just suddenly starts playing a new segment in the middle of the previous one. Great editing, guys.
In this new scene, Christian explains that he fell asleep and lost his scroll. Huh. I must have missed that part. He then meets Discretion, who is voiced by Microsoft Anna, and she introduces him to some other women (off-screen, of course). He explains to them that his wife and children did not come with him on his journey, but that he prayed to God for Him to show them the right path. God must have had a lot on His plate that day, though, since they’re almost definitely dead by now.
Another inexplicable jump cut with no transition whatsoever brings us to the next morning. The women give Christian “God’s armor,” which is a complete set of cosmetic items with names that one might expect to find in a religious MMORPG. The names of all the various items pop up in white letters whenever they’re shown off, but unfortunately the sword shines so brightly in the middle of the screen that its name is unreadable.
"Time to sell this shit at the auction house!"
After sliding down a small hill, Christian meets DevilmanApollyon, who has quite possibly the most laughable “scary” voice I’ve ever heard. Apollyon screams at him, which sounds something like the screeches of four women being tortured simultaneously. He reads his lines at Christian in a very bored-sounding tone, and then starts throwing fireballs at him. Christian’s shield deflects the attacks with more “women being tortured” sounds, and then the demon pushes him to the floor and prepares to rape him. Suddenly, Christian announces that “the Lord is the strength of [his] life,” which causes Apollyon to stub his toe and then fly away in fear like a little bitch. Forget Cowboy Bebop, The Pilgrim’s Progress is what truly sets the bar for badass animated fight scenes.
And then the animators apparently started doing LSD, because the next scene and its accompanying funk rock soundtrack make about as much sense as Begotten. After a couple minutes of unintelligible imagery, an omniscient voice quotes The Bible and someone hits the light switch. Christian runs out of “the valley of the shadow of death” unharmed with his newfound friend, Faithful. The pair travels through the town of Vanity Fair, and because they don’t buy anything, they are stoned, beaten, and imprisoned by the merchants. Capitalism at its finest.
At their trial, the court’s jury (which is composed entirely of disgustingly ugly people) finds them guilty of treason for loving God, so they are sentenced to death. Then, within the span of no more than five seconds, flying horses blow up the wall and rescue Christian. The scene then switches to a shot of a burning fire, implying the death of his friend. As the fire rages on, the narrator cheerfully chimes in with the line, “Faithful was withdrawn from the pilgrimage.” That’s pretty fucking morbid.
A man named Hopeful joins Christian on his journey (off-screen, of course), and they stop to rest for the night under the protection of a large rock. The next morning, they are awoken by an angry voice, which informs them that they are trespassing on his land. So-called Giant Despair proceeds to throw them in his dungeon, — which, unlike his “house,” is an actual building — mispronounce the word “trespassers,” and whip them.
"GIANT DESPAIR ANGRY! GIANT DESPAIR KEEP GIRLY MEN IN TOWER!"
After a few days of crying and posting on his LiveJournal, Christian remembers that he has a key in his pocket and randomly decides to try using it on the locked door… and it works! Never mind that the lock is literally 1000 times larger than the key, Christian and Hopeful are now free! Giant Despair attempts to stop the dynamic duo from escaping, but fails miserably by tripping over his nonexistent shoelaces.
Nearing the end of their journey, Christian and Hopeful meet four shepherds, which the single voice actor uses to showcase his astounding(ly awful) vocal range. They help our heroes by warning them of the dangers ahead and telling them to take heed of certain troublesome areas. It’s kind of ironic that the devout Christians are told what to do by shepherds, which would fit in with the rest of this cartoon’s allegories by implying that they’re nothing more than sheep, but I digress.
In the next scene, the only black character in the entire cartoon shows up to deviously trick our brave white Christian male heroes. They become trapped under a net that could have easily been cut by Christian’s sword for roughly two seconds before Evangelist pops up again to free them. They then meet Atheist, who laughs at them for believing in the Celestial City and doesn’t do much else.
Christian's faith is clearly shaken by Atheist's Godless words.
In yet another utterly pointless scene, the sheepheroes arrive in Beulah Land, a beautiful place which apparently doesn’t even compare to the Celestial City. Moving on, Christian and Hopeful are forced to pass through The River Of Death (how spooky!). More awful gospel music plays over a montage of clips from previous events in the cartoon, and then the video ends with the two friends walking into the clouds together.
———
While the allegories may be horribly dated and the story itself somewhat hypocritical, John Bunyan’s original Pilgrim’s Progress is definitely an important work in the history of religious literature. Baptista Films’ cartoon adaptation? Complete and utter pap. Not only is it poorly made and insultingly constructed, so much was cut out of and altered from the original work that it is literally incomprehensible. Any meaning that may have been present in Bunyan’s book is lost in the translation from text to shitty cartoon, and thus The Pilgrim’s Progress serves only as an example of what happens when propaganda with the intention of reinforcing an idea is hastily slapped together instead of carefully constructed. I honestly can’t see even the most devout Christian child thinking this trash is good. In fact, my thoughts on this production were already summed up quite well five months ago by YouTube’s sports513 in the cartoon’s comments section:
yo i dont know whats worse, your mothers poor anal sex or the fact that i spent 36 minutes watchin this piece of shit you fucking white ass fuck. i would rather lick sixteen homeless guys assholes then watching this again, go find a hole and dont ever talk to anyone ever again you selfish fuck.
Peace out and God bless!
— Foggle