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Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, January 17th. This is episode number 873. It is also one of my favorite days at the podcast. This is meet my friend Friday. And today, I’ve got former Hollywood actress and pop culture expert Tina Griffin on the show with me today and we’re going to talk about all things faith and culture. Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

So thanks to everybody who came out to the FPEA marriage cruise with my husband and myself. We are always thrilled when we get to spend time with people who want to nurture their marriage. And you guys know how we feel about this. Marriage is under attack in the culture right now. Family is under attack and we’ve got to give back to what God says is right and good. And so thanks to everybody who came out. Also want to say thank you to everyone who’s been leaving reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. I can’t thank you for doing that enough. And the same is true for the books that I’ve written. So if you’ve never left a review for Becoming Mom Strong or Prayers for the Battlefield or any of those books, we would love it. My husband and I, if you would get on over there and just leave a review, talk about what the books have meant to you.

And the same thing is true of the podcast. It really helps us to get the word out to other people. You guys know that I’m going to be flying into DFW for the THC winter summit. I’ll be in Frisco, Texas, the 24th and 25th and in Houston on the 31st and the 1st of February, come on out and see me. Also want to encourage you, if you’ve not joined me at MomStrong International, January is the best time of the year to really make a commitment to studying God’s word. And so you can do that with me. Hop on over to momstronginternational.com. I do live teaching every Wednesday on the Facebook group. And so as soon as you join, you’ll get a notification about that. And then you can come and join us and we’re talking about all things, faith and culture as it relates to God’s word over at the podcast.

I want to just take a minute and introduce my guest to you. I met Tina Griffin a couple of years ago out on the road. We’ve sort of crossed paths speaking at homeschool conferences. And this girl is on fire. She knows pretty much everything there is to know about Hollywood. She moved from a Wisconsin dairy farm to Hollywood, and then earned her BA in film and television broadcasting from California State University, Los Angeles. And she’s traveled globally for the past 15 years delivering what can only be described as an eye opening message about Hollywood. And she’s really just exposing the lies and explaining the real agenda behind the entertainment industry. And we’ve got so much to get to today. So my friend, Tina, welcome to the podcast.

[Tina] Hey, welcome. It’s an honor to be on the battlefield with you, Heidi. I appreciate all the work that you’re pumping into our culture to get America back on track, world back on track, and focused on Christ. And whenever I think about the days I want to wave the white flag, your name pops up. Nope, she’s in it. I’m in it. I’m staying in it.

[Heidi] Thank you.

[Tina] Thank you for being you.

[Heidi] Well, thank you. And I love hanging out with men and women who are thought leaders, but they’re not just thinking, they’re actually getting out there and getting off the bench. You have really raised this to a whole new level because it’s not easy to stand up against the lies of Hollywood and particularly the movies and television shows that are being pumped to our kids. And I thought it’d be fun. There’s so many things. I’ve got a list of things I want to talk to you about, but I like to just start, since you haven’t been on the show with me, I’d love to just introduce you to my audience and let them know a little bit about sort of what makes you so passionate about what you’re doing. So why did you start exposing the lies that are coming at our families and our children in particular through the entertainment industry?

[Tina] Well, I love taking Satan down. So my biggest thing is as a teenager I hated being lied to and I always was striving towards sharing truth. And so when I went to Hollywood at the age of 20 from a dairy farm in Wisconsin, milking cows, picking rocks, bailing hay, I wanted to be the next big Julia Roberts. So the only way to do that, going two years to University of Wisconsin Green Bay for Broadcast Communications was not to stay there and report on hockey games and Green Bay Packers. Even though I love green and gold, don’t get me wrong. Super bowl ball by the way. Super bowl is in two weeks, we’re going to take them out.

But it’s to get out to Hollywood and what is the biggest influence that was causing me to think that I had to be stick thin and date somebody and have sex in order to fit in. And buy things that I really don’t need, but was marketed towards my generation. I had five of my friends that were killed when one of our classmates overdosed on medication and drugs. He was on drugs. And five of my classmates had died in seventh grade, Heidi. so small town, 2200 people, seeing all that happen, becoming a Christian at 16. I said, you know what? I can’t be a benchwarmer. I was willing to die for the cause. Take a bullet and I still am today. And so what made me passionate about pop culture is what was causing my friends to choose, make unwise decisions, myself to feel like I have to do these things in order to fit in.

And it was coming from pop culture. And when I became a Christian, I would take 90210 and compare it to scripture. I would take Melrose Place and look at the behaviors they were encouraging people to do. And then look at scripture. I’m like, man, we’ve got Satan and God. And so what can I do to help change the wrong identity influencers shaping my generation? And that was when God placed on my heart, get out to LA. Take your Bible, work on set, wear your abstinence t-shirts on set. And start helping to change the culture in a big way through changing the main influencers that then could change the masses way of thinking and worldview.

And so that’s what caused me to say, “Parents, I’m gone.” And at age of 20, headed out to Hollywood and learned a ton for a decade that built the platform I’ve been now doing for 18 years, which is doing Hollywood Exposed and sharing the lies that Satan is pumping into young people’s minds today and sharing God’s truth. And when kids get it, their jaws dropped because I have video footage to prove it, my personal testimony, and they get what I’m saying, which is “don’t base your identity on what Hollywood is trying to sell you on a daily basis.”

[Heidi] So you talked about 90210 and Melrose Place, which I haven’t heard about or thought about those names in a really long time. But as you’re saying them, I’m thinking, oh my goodness. There was an entire generation that was literally shaped by the characters on Beverly Hills 90210. And entertainment has an incredibly powerful role in the lives of our kids and I’m wondering when you think about the role that you see is being pushed on kids today, how do you see it different even from the days when 90210 was popular?

[Tina] It’s such a great question you brought up because 20 years ago when parents today grew up, we were primarily watching those programs and it did shape what we thought, behaviors we thought we had to do. No consequences back then were revealed for premarital sex, the parties with the drinking, binge drinking, all of that. It pales in comparison with what today’s teens are currently ingesting at an all time high, which does to me correlate with suicide for example, being the number two killer among our teens today.

We’ve got beheadings om video games galore, premarital sex, oral sex in video games. I mean, it’s really graphic stuff. My counterculture mom app, I send out pop culture alerts to parents who have that app and it’s been a really good growth for the platform, but it helps parents see just where pop culture has gone. There’s group orgy scenes on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. There’s baby sacrifice that is happening in a Riverdale season three. Baby sacrifice compared to a guy and a girl at a school dance on 90210, which by the way was my first scene that I did. I was at a school dance for 90210 and there was kissing in there, which was a big deal back then.

Pales in comparison to baby sacrifice now on Riverdale season three and we can see that it’s having a detrimental effect on our teens today with the lack of life, low self esteem, abortion not being a big deal because there’s no value for life if they’re being promoted that you can throw babies in a fire at a party. And this is what our kids are seeing, and so parents don’t even primarily know what these kids are watching. And then when I share at the different events that I travel every year and speak up, parents realize, wow, my kids watch a show. That’s in that?

And then the conversation starts with them and their kids on helping them make better media choices to have a better diet so that their kids, they’ve come back to me and said, “My kids have a higher self esteem, better grades, eating better. They know what they want to do after they get out of high school.” So a lot of great things have happened as a result of kids ingesting positive entertainment. And I give them lots of options.

[Heidi] It’s amazing to me that we idolize celebrities like we do. And we still do. I mean, we idolized Christian celebrities, let’s be honest. We have this need in us to go, “oh, I want what that guy has”. It’s like this vacuum inside of us. And you and I have had conversations, which I would love for my audience to hear just a snippet because you learned a lot when you worked in Hollywood. And we’re on a lot of these shows. You are rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in Hollywood and you learn something about how celebrities are raising their children that’s kind of shocking. So let people in on that a little bit because I think it’s fascinating.

[Tina] Absolutely. Thank you, girl. We’ve got people like Madonna. I show a clip in my live show. She was on Ellen about three, four years ago with her son, Rocco. This was just one of hundreds of stories I could literally share where she told Ellen, my son Rocco comes on tour with me. And then Ellen asks, Rocco, hey, what do you think about your mom basically stripping naked on stage and barely clothed and singing the graphic lyrics? He goes, “Oh, I don’t hear or see any of that. I’m under the stage protected doing things. I’m not even aware of what my mom does on stage.”

When I heard that interview, my number one thought was “great mom”. Number two thought was “very hypocritical” because the masses of young kids are watching her do the very actions that she knows is wrong for her own son to see. Third was “I better find this dirt on the net” and I did. And so I’ve been playing that for the last couple of years along with many other clips just so people can see, especially the teens, wow, celebrities shelter their own kids from the entertainment that I’m watching. Why? And it’s because the celebs don’t want their kids to be harmed, hurt in any kind of matter. Get the wrong messages in their brain.

No competition either. You’ve got intelligent kids growing up in mansions in the Hollywood Hills protected from things that could harm them. There’s going to be no competition in the workforce and job force in a mentality state when you have millions of other kids that did hear these lyrics, that are engaging in sexual activity, that are into drugs or suicide or cutting. And so to me it’s just really wrong.

Eminem’s another prime example for 20 years. He’s a very well known and very talented rapper, which a lot of parents can’t even spell his name, let alone know what kind of lyrics he sings, where I get emails from people that completely spell his name, M&M. So parents are very disconnected with knowing that Marshall Mathers is one of the top rappers still today, two decades later, that sheltered his own daughter, Haley, from his lyrics. He rewrote the lyrics for Haley to listen to. And one case in point that drove this home for me is I was on a cruise for Focus on the Family speaking to a mother daughter crowd, a couple of hundred people, about a decade ago. And a girl comes running up to me after she heard my message and said, “Oh man, I was Haley’s best friend in middle school, Tina. She’d have guys coming up to her, rapping her dad’s lyrics, and she said, ‘That’s not what he’s saying, it’s this.'”

Clean lyrics versus the vulgar sex saturated stuff that the kids were telling her on the playground. So these are the things that I’ve heard firsthand, witnessed firsthand, work with these celebrities face to face over a decade where to me, our kids are getting ripped off. And the second I show them truth, they are on fire because they get it, because they have the evidence they need to make different choices.

[Heidi] Well and no, motherhood changes us, right? You’ve got four kids, they range in age from six to 11. You’ve been married for 12 years. Motherhood definitely changes how we see the culture and how we see entertainment and what we’re allowing ourselves to look at. Because monkey see monkey do, our children are watching and they’re imitating us. But talk to the parents right now who are listening to this and they’re checked out. They don’t know what their kids are listening to on their iPhones. They’ve been like, here you go. I gave you the parental controls on Netflix and so I gave it, you know, whatever, 13+ on down you can watch. But you and I both know that that’s not good enough. So how do you talk to the parent who has sort of checked out and get them to check back in so that they can begin to protect the minds of their children and how do they talk to their kids about the changes that they’re making?

[Tina] Oh, great questions. And it’s not an easy answer and it is time consuming, but the biggest thing we can do is invest in our most precious asset, which is our children. And that’s our job. And I just want to tell the parents tuning in right now, we have, I believe, the hardest time ever in the history of being parents on being a parent. Why? Because of technology. Yes, before people had to walk 70 miles with no shoes in the middle of winter to get water and food. I get that. It’s a different kind of hard. Today we’ve got attack coming from all sides because of the easy accessibility of pornography and drugs and all of this stuff, especially through a simple little tech gadget like a cell phone. So it is imperative that we get into the battle and know what’s happening.

Are kids always going to steer clear from every negative movie and every TV show that might pop up? Absolutely not. They’re going to sometimes see scenes that we wish they didn’t see, but my oldest son, now 11, would come up to and say, “Mom, I was at my friend’s house down the street. This TV show came on, there was this commercial. We got to talk about it.” I wish you wouldn’t have seen it. I wish my daughter wouldn’t have seen a thing on the iPad in the past, but when they know they can come to me as a parent, share what they saw, we can then have a conversation about it. And I think that is key because we will never be able to keep our kid in a bubble and we shouldn’t. But it’s imperative we know what is going on.

And so with the counterculture mom ministry, that’s why we created an app, which you’re on that app. I’m on that app. There’s about six other amazing writers, authors, vloggers, bloggers, speakers that are on this app, pumping out content to help parents keep up with a lot of this. And so parents have a full time job already homeschooling their kids or they’re out in the workforce. Both of the parents are out in the workforce and so my main job is to help your job be easier so you know what’s coming up with pop culture, what shows and TV shows are great to get your hands on, what are ones you need to run from, what apps are coming out that should be on the phone to help protect your kids, what video games shouldn’t be played or purchased. And so I help make your job easier. It’s a quick update through the app. You get the alerts. That will be a great way to see what’s going on. Feel like you’re on the front of the lines on the knowledge.

And then I give tips on how to have those conversations with your kids so you feel like you’re more in it, instead of finding out about the disastrous thing that took place because your kids knew more than you do about the pop culture. Then of course, I have the website and I have video galleries on my website, counterculturemom.com. That’s key and I’m not the only answer. Counter Culture Mom, this pop culture stuff is not the only way to get your hands on stuff. I have a resources page with probably over 200 helpful links depending on what needs you are looking for. Is it eating disorders? Do you just want to know what pop culture, how it’s rated through Focus on the Family? We have a plugged in link through that. Is it you have a teenager now that has a computer in the room?

How can you make sure they’re protected from pornography? We have covenant eyes link there, so there’s 200 links at least you can click on, totally separated with categories to make it easy to find, that pertains to your particular needs in your house so you can safeguard your home from any onslaught that the enemy wants to attack.

But I also have info on how to protect your kids when they’re outside of your perimeter and your visual. You can’t see them, they’re on the school bus or at school. I have a lot of things that help. Give you tips and tools on being involved. And I also want to mention with the app, if you see dirt that you know more parents need to be aware of, instead of sending it just a social media platform where most of our conservative views today are censored major. If you send it through the app, I blast that information out to everybody who’s got the app and that also helps. And I get a lot every single week of people texting in. Did you see this on Netflix or this just came out as an app that’s dangerous on the phone. That’s a way to report the dirt that you’re seeing to help thousands of parents that want that information.

[Heidi] I hear the criticism from people saying, “You live in the world, so get over it,” you know? But the truth is we are responsible as parents to protect our children. And it’s alarming to me when parents don’t see that. One of the great examples was you and I were just talking about this before we went on the show. My husband finally wrote to Netflix and he canceled our account. And this came after they went ahead and produced a show that basically shows a drunk gay Jesus. And it was so offensive, openly mocking the Lord Jesus and it was heartbreaking and it shouldn’t be tolerated. And so I just said, “Hey, we might not have a choice in what Netflix produces, but we absolutely have a choice when it comes to where we spend our money.”

[Tina] Absolutely.

[Heidi] Then the question arises, as I put it on Facebook and I tell everybody, “Hey, we actually canceled our Netflix account,” which was sort of painful because we’ve been doing Netflix since they were sending DVDs in the mail.

[Tina] Yes.

[Heidi] So for a long time. But there came a point when we were like, this is over the top. Like we know that there are going to be gay shows on there and we don’t look at any of that stuff. But when they promoted this, it was like something just snapped inside of my husband. I was sort of there a while ago, but I needed him to be there. Right. We don’t watch a lot of Netflix, but it’s nice when you want it. But we finally just decided, wait, this is a bridge too far. It was just way too far.

And then people said, well, what are you going to do? You’re going to stop eating Cheerios? You’re going to stop buying stuff from Nordstrom? All these people are supporting a gay agenda and they’re right. Like we’re saturated with it in the culture. And so every family has to determine what is that line. And for me, with Netflix, the line was them producing a show that depicts Jesus that way. And so I’m wondering, what do you say to parents who say, “Well, you can’t help it. Just don’t a watch it”. Well, it wasn’t as simple as that.

[Tina] No, I agree. And the thing is where our dollar goes is also showing what we want to support. And if we no longer want to support a company that bashes Jesus in that manner, the group orgies I was talking about, the beheadings and video and TV shows, they’ve got series with the baby sacrifice. Whenever I share that, Heidi, I’m not kidding you, I have parents that are running up to me when I get done and I’m just getting off the stage saying, “Guess who I’m on the phone with right now?” I said, “Who?” And we had this on video too. “We’re canceling our Netflix right now.” And I even had people say they canceled during my talk. It was that like offensive or shocking that they’re like, “What? I had no idea. I’m done.” Because if you put our money where our mouth is, we would be supporting other companies like Pure Flix, Cross Flix.

I also talk about VidAngel just came out with the Chosen. It’s an awesome binge worthy show about the life of Jesus. First largest crowd funding source girl where they raised a $16 million to make this happen. Dallas Jenkins was a producer on it. I know the guy, he’s very talented. This is what we need to put our money towards. The truth about who Christ is. It saving souls around the world to be a part of this project and purchase it and watch it or even be a part of it to help fund it is where we should be putting our dollars. And if Christians, a majority of people in our world today, country today, are Christians, which I still believe, Heidi, that it is. The last election to me and my gut tells me it is, and it tells me that we’re starting to speak up.

The media being very censored and one sided makes it hard for our voices to be heard. But I really believe if Christians stood up and said, enough is enough, we’re going to watch whatever comes in our home, who we support, what we support, we would have the right companies closing their doors and the Christian companies skyrocketing with business and production and blasting truth to the masses. And I think it takes people like you and myself and many other people that we know about on the front of the lines, that say enough is enough and why? And then parents saying we have the power to join forces and say we’re no longer going to support companies that are killing our kids, emotionally or spiritually. And then the other part is we as parents have to stop watching the programs. I’ve had so many teens saying, “I stopped watching that, but my parents still watch it.” So I challenged my parents..

[Heidi] You’re so right. That just makes me crazy.

[Tina] It’s huge.

[Heidi] Well, and we can’t give our kids what we don’t have. And so many of these… I talk to parents all the time out on the road and I hear from parents who say, well, I don’t want my kids to watch it, but I know that that stuff’s wrong, except for God’s Word says whatever’s good, whatever’s right, whatever’s honorable, think about these things. And we cannot give our children what we don’t have. And so much of it is just an unwillingness to address the sin in our own lives and stop allowing ourselves to make excuses for what God said, “Hey, don’t do that.”

[Tina] I couldn’t agree more. And the neat thing is when we make that switch, and it might take a little while because if we’re ingrained… I’ve had I don’t want to say arguments… I thought friends that would be in a major debate if I would post something godly on Facebook or expose some stuff about a show, like the Walking Dead.

I had a very close friend of mine that said, “I will never talk to you again for your horrendous exposure of Walking Dead. It’s a fantastic show.” And I had my concern over it and it wasn’t like even that detailed, but it caused a friendship to go nuts through some really vulgar text messages I received. But that’s just one case in point. Like if we try to do the right thing and share, if we as parents started saying notice certain shows even though it might be ingrained in them for a number of years. There’s been a couple of series we had to stop watching because it got graphic by season number three, God totally heals our heart. We feel a higher self esteem. We gravitate towards stuff that is pure and Holy and exciting, that we don’t miss that stuff once we start going in the right direction and it’s so much more exciting to live a God fulfilled life, even with the entertainment we choose, because it gets us on track and we’re closer to Christ. We have a vision and purpose when we start being ingrained in stuff that’s positive versus the negative.

And I just got to a point over the years where it’s actually very hard for me Heidi to sometimes watch clips for the sole purpose of educating people and why they should steer clear from it. It sometimes gives me nightmares, anxiety just to ingest a three minute video clip of a new violent video game that I have to warn parents about. Just because I’m so trying to guard my heart and mind from the stuff that’s out there for our kids today. It’s a tough job to actually analyze and do what I do.

[Heidi] Yeah. And I think people need to realize that what we’re dealing with is actually wickedness and it’s actually Satanic on so many different levels. And the entertainment industry is at the forefront of this. And we also have opportunities to support people who are making good films, who are doing… because it’s no joke to… and I’ve had lots of conversations with Sam and Kevin Sorbo about their desire to make films that are edifying. And we’re seeing good movies come out. Well, when those good movies come out and those good shows come out, people need to go out and watch them.

[Tina] Absolutely. And the other frustrating thing is you’ve got 48 hours to go watch them, people, because the theaters play it for two days and it’s out or one night and it’s out. And I actually went to Israel with Kevin and Sam Sorbo this last summer. And in the process, my husband got to meet Kevin and they’re all talking now about my husband’s is starting a company with two other guys in Nashville here to help produce movies for Kevin and Sam Sorbo.

So it’s a really exciting time because people want positive, there’s just a lack of it. And then we have to support platforms that produce and share this positive content. It really comes down to exactly what you said earlier, you nailed it. Where are we going to spend our time and our money and how are we going to be the example for our kids so they know how to live life carefully by choosing and making wise decisions?

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I want to just end on this because I think what you said, the most important thing you’ve said for the whole show is that parents have to set the example. And if we can’t stop watching this garbage, if we can’t get it off our phones, if we can’t get it off of our television sets, then our kids are not going to be able to do it.

And we’ve got to look really deep into our own hearts and say, Lord, you’ve asked me to live a set apart life. We are called to be a set apart people and we don’t need Netflix. We really don’t.

[Tina] I couldn’t agree more, girl. And I just want to tell the parents. Sometimes I would get a lot of parents to tell me, hey, what’s left? I mean, Little House on the Prairie got stripped, the original MacGyver series is gone. PAC Man, you can hardly find it. What’s going on? How can we get positive entertainment? And I tell them, I put together an awesome guide with thousands of options that are actually out there, but the secular market will never promote it because there’s no sex, no drugs, there’s no way they can connect and make cash on the other side of things. So if your amazing group of parents can text the word guide, G-U-I-D-E, to the number 55444, it’ll then ask you for your email address.

You text back your email and you’ll get a four page PDF entertainment guide filled with thousands of positive entertainment options. Then you can then replace the stuff you might currently be watching, but you don’t know that these even exist. And they’re great. They’re not the cheesy business from 30 years ago. We’re talking really good TV shows, cooking shows for the kids, devotionals, Bible studies, a lot of stuff that’s out there for a lot of people to get their hands on. There’s something for everything, especially with Cross Flix, Pure Flix. And then we have the Vid Angel now coming out with their own TV series, that parents, if they download that guide, will be pleasantly surprised at how many options are actually out there. So they have a wide variety of choices for their kids and for themselves for entertainment.

[Heidi] I love that. So they text the word guide, G-U-I-D-E, to you at 55444. They’ll put in their email address and then they’ll get a PDF with the guide right in their inbox.

[Tina] You got it, within a minute.

[Heidi] I love it. I love it. So where else can we find you online, at counterculture mom? How do they find the app?

[Tina] Yes, the app. Just go to the iTunes store or the Google Play store and type in counterculture mom. And that’s it. You’ll totally download it and have all the content there. There’s tons of blogs. We even have the alerts are now being written by 19 teens that I just hired on our team. So you have teens writing about the dangers of pop culture or the positive options of pop culture for parents to read where they’ll understand even more because coming from a teen, their own kids’ age, which is very exciting.

And then also of course, counterculturemom.com is the website. And then if they want to get our four brand newly launched Hollywood Exposed four CD series, I have a code that’s right there on the website they can punch in and they’ll be able to get 15% off. So that series that can download immediately or I can send it to them in the mail, but it’s a Hollywood Exposed four hours CD series that really was recorded live at one of these homeschool events here recently. So a lot of this stuff that we talked about today. I go into major detail, there’s no fluff in those four hours and their teens will be on fire when they tune in and listen to it.

[Heidi] I love it. Tina Griffin, you are a fire-starter women. I love it. You are off the bench and onto the battlefield. Thank you so much for the example that you’re setting in the work that you’re doing. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

[Tina] Well, thank you very much doing. Keep doing what you’re doing and I can’t wait to join forces in 2020, girl. 

[Heidi] It’s going to be good. For more information about Tina Griffin and her ministry to parents, go to Heidistjohn.com/podcast. I will link that and all things Tina Griffin in the show notes today. Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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