Steve Deace on Storytelling: Our Best Hope to Save the West

Steve Deace isn’t the only conservative railing against Hollywood for its relentlessly progressive messaging.

Hardly.

The Blaze TV star is in good company, but while his peers weigh in on their various platforms Deace took the matter to the next level.

He made a movie reflecting his values and those of countless consumers.

“Nefarious,” in theaters April 14, is the prequel to Deace’s two-book series. The story takes place before both “A Nefarious Plot” and “A Nefarious Carol.” The film features a fierce interrogation between a death-row inmate (Sean Patrick Flanery) and the psychiatrist (Jordan Belfi) tasked with assessing his mental state.

The inmate claims he’s doing the devil’s bidding, and he has a compelling case.

Deace opened up to The Hollywood in Toto Podcast about the film, why it matters and how it differs than most faith-friendly features.

He also address the larger political debates in the country with a warning, and a lesson, for us.

Deace says conservatives better rethink their political strategies if they want to forge real change in the coming election cycle.

“We have to abandon the old paradigm of the Boomer era … every two, four or six years I represent the silent majority and vote straight-ticket Republican,” he says, a system that only works if the party has the public’s best interests at heart. “Very few people with an R after our name that seek our votes that truly care about us … no one with a D after it does.”

Voting isn’t enough.

“We have to consider that the place left where real persuasion can happen is storytelling… when the Lord came, much of his preaching was in parable or story form,” he says.

“We don’t tell great stories in the West anymore … they used to tell great stories … when you go to [liberal Hollywood] movies now, they’re actually doing the ham-fisted stuff that Christian filmmakers were attacked for in the past, checking boxes, making sure my woke talking points get in there, and producing cringy fare.”

“There is an opening for [conservatives] right now to tell great stories. We have the greatest truths, the greatest content, the greatest stories, the greatest storyteller ever at our disposal,” he says, adding how [nearly] 20,000 people paid it forward for others to watch the counter-culture Angel Studios’ film, “His Only Son.”

“I’m not saying to completely divest from politics,” he says. “Instead of sending that last 50 bucks a month you have to that Republican politician who hates you. Maybe send him $25 and spend the other $25 supporting people like us, or VidAngel or what the [Irwin] brothers did with films like “I Can Only Imagine.”

 “Trying to tell good, mature, redemptive stories that confront the culture in ways they’ll understand…. that’s the last piece of cartilage left in American culture, the last place that’s somewhat flexible, and listenable and persuadable is the storyteller arena,” he says. 

“The pop culture is the most influential mission field in America. More minds are made up and converted in pop culture than in our pulpits, in our classrooms, at our kitchen tables, that’s where we need to be,” he adds.

Deace also shares the last-minute switch that saved the film plus much more in the rest of the conversation.