{"id":993,"date":"2026-06-03T06:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T06:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=993"},"modified":"2026-06-03T06:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T06:06:17","slug":"perspective-what-the-chosen-looks-like-to-the-new-yorker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=993","title":{"rendered":"Perspective: What \u2018The Chosen\u2019 looks like to The New Yorker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The audience of The New Yorker doesn\u2019t all live on the coasts, but they\u2019re the sort of people often characterized as the \u201ccoastal elite.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Highly educated, affluent and largely left leaning, they go to the venerable magazine for erudite reviews of plays, films and books, as well as essays and reporting, and of course, the cartoons. The magazine\u2019s iconic image of a French aristocrat studying a butterfly through a monocle, the nose tilted just so, is about as far from heartland America as you can get.<\/p>\n

So what happens when The New Yorker turns its monocle on \u201cThe Chosen,\u201d the popular television series exploring the life and ministry of Jesus Christ?<\/p>\n

We found out this week in a piece by Rachel Monroe entitled \u201cAct of Faith: How \u2018The Chosen\u2019 spurred a golden age of Christian filmmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a surprisingly neutral headline, given that The New Yorker newsletter that directed me to the article was entitled \u201cHollywood Comes to Jesus.\u201d And a 2023 article about \u201cThe Chosen\u201d star Jonathan Roumie was similarly irreverently titled.<\/p>\n

But what of the story itself? Here are 5 things we learn when an unbeliever who writes for The New Yorker looks at a series globally beloved by people of faith.<\/p>\n

1. Hollywood forgets about Christians <\/h3>\n

\u201cAlthough the United States has become a much more secular country since the 1990s, the majority of Americans still identify as Christian, a fact that Hollywood regularly seems to remember, forget, and then remember again,\u201d Monroe writes. <\/p>\n

But right now, Hollywood is in a period of remembering, she says, writing \u201c2025 was arguably the best year for Biblical content in decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPrime Video had a hit with \u2018House of David,\u2019 an Old Testament-inspired fantasy epic complete with giants and soothsayers. … An animated musical called \u2018David\u2019 became one of the highest-grossing Biblical films in more than a decade. In April, there were three Jesus-themed projects in the box-office Top Ten \u2014 two were theatrical releases of \u201cThe Chosen\u201d episodes, and the third was the South Korean animated film \u2018The King of Kings.\u2019”<\/p>\n

Moreover, she notes, \u201cMel Gibson is at work on a sequel to \u2018Passion\u2019 that will be released next Easter weekend. Two seasons of \u2018Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints,\u2019 a docuseries narrated and executive-produced by the filmmaker, have aired on Fox Nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Religious content is seen as \u2018niche\u2019<\/h3>\n

According to Monroe, \u201cThe success of media projects is increasingly driven by devoted fan bases rather than by widespread appeal. With the decline in churchgoing, observant Christians are now members of a distinct subculture, one that can be targeted by marketers who speak the idiom of faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

She quotes a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Belloni, who says, \u201cIf you can identify a niche that you can overserve that feels underserved in the market, then you can have a successful business.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also says creator Dallas Jenkins \u201cseems temperamentally inclined to treat faith audiences as a capacious majority rather than as an embattled minority.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Fans adore Dallas Jenkins<\/h3>\n

\u201cJenkins is built like a football player \u2014 he sometimes gets mistaken for Tom Brady in airports \u2014 but he comes off as guileless and geeky, with an obsessive\u2019s bottomless enthusiasm for talk,\u201c Monroe writes.<\/p>\n

She said that she watched promotional videos Jenkins and his wife did about \u201cThe Chosen\u201d on YouTube. \u201cThe more I watched, the more he reminded me of Kermit the Frog with biceps.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may or may not have made Jenkins laugh. Suffice it to say that in forthcoming episode of the \u201cDeseret Voices\u201d podcast, he says, \u201cI care about what God thinks and what my wife thinks, and after that, it\u2019s not all that important to me, other than wanting to make sure I\u2019m serving God faithfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

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4. You can be too friendly<\/h3>\n

At a ChosenCon in Charlotte, Monroe writes, \u201cThe atmosphere was saturated with a friendliness that occasionally tipped into intrusiveness. My shoes came untied, which I noticed only when a stranger bent before me to tie them.\u201d <\/p>\n

5. The storyline isn\u2019t suspenseful enough<\/h3>\n

\u201cI did not find the show as bingeable as its core audience does,\u201d Monroe says. \u201cSome crucial element of the experience \u2014 perhaps a feeling that what I was watching was providential and urgent and true \u2014 was inaccessible to me as a nonbeliever. Instead, I was left with the sense that this was a narrative that had stakes but little suspense, since it is never in question how this story is going to turn out.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that we know how this story turns out; fans of \u201cThe Chosen\u201d have made that point. The satirical Christian site The Babylon Bee recently joked that the show was \u201cjumping the shark\u201d because it planned to have its main character die, \u201conly to resurrect him next episode.\u201d<\/p>\n

The X account of \u201cThe Chosen\u201d humorously responded, \u201cAdmittedly we are running out of new ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, of course, knowing what happens on Easter Sunday is why more than 2 billion people worldwide profess the Christian faith, making it the largest religious group.<\/p>\n

The global appeal of \u2018The Chosen\u2019<\/h3>\n

It is that nuance that is missing from The New Yorker\u2019s take on \u201cThe Chosen,\u201d which, in its focus on monetization and merch, fails to get at the heart of the show\u2019s popularity. <\/p>\n

In a forthcoming episode of the \u201cDeseret Voices\u201d podcast, Jenkins delves into that \u201cdeeper truth,\u201d telling Sheri Dew, executive vice president and chief content officer of Deseret Management Corporation, that when he encounters fans of the show, many of them start crying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a celebrity thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a gratitude thing. They\u2019ll just say you have no idea how much this show has changed my life, it\u2019s changed my heart, it\u2019s changed my heart, my relationship with my family. I\u2019ve never been this close to God. I\u2019m pursuing Jesus like I never have been before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenkins goes on to tell Dew that \u201cThe Chosen\u201d is now the most-translated show in television history, and the intent is to eventually translate it into 98% of the world\u2019s languages.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the idea of faith audiences as an \u201cembattled minority\u201d is curious, given that Christianity remains the world\u2019s largest faith group, and that Hollywood has been losing influence in America in large part because it has neglected the values and interests of people of faith. <\/p>\n

To her credit, Monroe\u2019s article for The New Yorker acknowledges the worldwide appeal of the show, noting, \u201cSeason 1 is available in a hundred and twenty-five languages, including Finnish, Tulu, and Kyrgyz; when it streamed on Netflix, it was in the Top Ten in Paraguay, Honduras, and Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n

And also, it should be noted that Monroe herself is not a \u201ccoastal elite\u201d \u2014 she lives in Texas, albeit in Marfa, a city recently called \u201cthe unlikeliest of global art capitals and hipster hangouts\u201d by Texas Monthly.<\/p>\n

Monroe ends her article with an anecdote about Jenkins asking fans on a livestream to share content on social media.<\/p>\n

And she describes character of Jesus Christ, played by Jonathan Roumie, as a depiction of a \u201ca tender and benevolent manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

For The Chosen\u2019s fanbase, which vastly outnumbers The New Yorker\u2019s circulation, that\u2019s an understatement to say the least. <\/p>\n

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The New Yorker’s famous emblem depicts a French aristocrat with a monocle. 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