'Rock of Ages' Paints Church as Hypocritical, Anti-Rock & Roll

The new movie musical “Rock of Ages” takes some creative liberties with the source material, a love letter to the hair metal rock of the Reagan era.

But rather than draw deeper inspiration from the actual decade in question, Hollywood fell back on its favorite bogeyman – the church goer.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is cast as an L.A. politician’s wife, a Bible thumper who wants to eradicate rock from the Sunset Strip. The brunette Oscar-winner looks and acts nothing like Tipper Gore, the wife of then-Sen. Al Gore who crusaded against offensive rock music and misogynistic music videos during the 1980s.

Every film needs a villain, right? So why not trot out a Gore doppelganger and have some fun with the real thing? Instead, the close-minded church goers here are depicted as both unthinking and hypocritical, leading lives that can hardly be described as saintly.

Tipper Gore can breathe a sigh of relief when “Rock of Ages” hits theaters nationwide Friday.