Ted Baehr ’69 is founder and chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, a non-profit that lobbies the entertainment industry to produce content aligned with Christian teachings. He is also publisher of Movieguide, a magazine affiliated with the Christian Film and Television Commission that features original reviews for movies and television shows based on their moral and Biblical content. Baehr, who studied comparative literature at the College and received a law degree from the New York University School of Law, has written several books on the subject of American mass media and Christian values.
Why did you choose to come to Dartmouth?
TB: My father came to Dartmouth, and my son came to Dartmouth. My father was a star in Hollywood during the 1930s. His stage name was Robert Allen — he had a couple of Westerns and won the Box Office Award in 1936. When I was at St. Paul’s [School in Concord], we used to come by and drive up to Dartmouth. A couple of the people were big friends of his from the Class of 1928 and 1929, so it was fun.
Did you participate in the arts at the College?
TB: I grew up on Broadway. My father was a star, and I grew up backstage at the theater doing all the nefarious things that you hear about when you live that lifestyle. My first year at Dartmouth, I decided I didn’t want to write an exam for my French class with [professor] John Rassias. Instead of doing that, I said I wanted to write a play and [Rassias] said, “Okay, we’ll try.” I wrote a play called “L’Institution.” It was a good excuse to go to several girls’ schools around the area, because at that time we weren’t coed. A good friend of mine, Tom Herman ’69, directed the play, and we had a lot of fun.
How did you integrate your law and theology background with an interest in media?
TB: Well, we do analysis [at The Christian Film and Television Commission]. We don’t do thumbs up or thumbs down. We’re an advocate in the industry. There are a lot of groups in Hollywood that are advocates, and we’re listed with the guilds. We advocate the Christian faith.
Movieguide exists to do two things. One, it helps people teach their children discernment. We analyze films and help people understand everything from the semantics and the syntactics to ontology and epistemology. Second, we collect all that data and produce a massive economic report to the industry. We show people what does well at the box office and highlight our point of view. Movies with faith and values do much better at the box office. We have a good run at influencing people to make movies that appeal to our audience.
How did your time at Dartmouth affect what you do now?
TB: When I was at Dartmouth, I was very salacious. I was a very different type of person entirely. I did a lot of nefarious activities. I took almost a year off to do study programs. The thing that built me was probably the comparative literature major. That gave a base of analysis and probably influenced me later.
After Dartmouth, I went to NYU law school. After NYU law school, I worked at the U.S. Attorney’s office. A friend of mine, Peter Fonda, asked me to help finance a couple feature films. Somebody gave me a Bible, and my life turned around from one direction to another. I went to a seminary in New York. Then I went off to do “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (1979) on CBS-TV. We won an Emmy Award — I said, “How can we be more intentional?” “How can we make a difference?” So that’s how I went into it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
