Square. Anal-retentive. Pedantic. Frothy.

Such are not the words you expect to hear of someone with wisdom to offer the world of art. Yet…

Rick Santorum has accepted the position as CEO of EchoLight, a studio which to date has churned out the kind of saccharine schmaltz we’ve come to expect from faith-based film. Alyssa Rosenburg has dug up some evidence, however, that may prove Santorum to be the right person for the job:

“In a 2011 speech at the Heritage Foundation, the senator urged Christian conservatives to get involved in popular culture,” she reports. “’The problem in the past is that you have these people who create these Christian films—great message, terrible acting, horrible editing,’ Santorum said. ‘They are not entertaining, they’re preachy.’ In that speech, he said that conservatives needed to go to Hollywood. But “’Dallas can become the Hollywood of the faith-and-family movie market,’ he said Monday.”

Yeah. Here’s to better filmmaking. Cf., in order of increasing meta-relevance, William Romanowski, Andy Crouch, James Davison Hunter.

Read the rest of Rosenburg’s thoughts here.