Focusing on better arenas

When The Da Vinci Code (2006) was released there was quite a firestorm over the implications for religious people. I, being a religious person, therefore put some thought into the situation.

And I found it had absolutely no implications for me whatsoever. First off, the story is contrived, convoluted, and ridiculous. It strains the bounds of credibility far more than even the Bourne franchise or even the Oceans franchise. It did make a mildly entertaining movie, but I found it to be, in movie critic language, a self-indulgent, by the numbers who done it with a couple of twists but nothing memorable or out of the ordinary. Sadly, I called one of the "twists" less than a half hour into the movie...

It did not shake my faith, cause me to reassess historical possibilities, or in any other way interact with my faith at all. I found it to be exactly what it was...a fictional movie intended to entertain. The fact it dealt with historical figures, art pieces, etc. did not change that reading of the movie. It was fiction, to entertain, I cannot stress that enough, just like Sahara (2005), another movie that dealt with historical figures and events...or even like National Treasure (2004), yet another who done it replete with historical characters, art, documents, etc. I did not hear anyone complaining they would never look at the Confederacy again after Sahara or that they had a different view of the Founding Fathers after National.

I am apparently unusual in my ability to distinguish between fiction designed to entertain and non-fiction. I was stunned when people talked about Thje Da Vinci Code non-stop and the sort of issues it posed for faith. What issues? Does The Poky Little Puppy or Green Eggs & Ham or Hop on Pop pose issues for your faith? The Puppy acting like a person, ham changing colors, and parental abuse are issues posed by those books...perhaps my faith should be shaken since those things all contradict how things work in the real world!

Well, now we are at it again. The Golden Compass (2007) is coming out later this year. It is based on a series of books by some guy I have never heard of who is now getting a lot of run due largely to the Catholic churches' objections to the movie.

The real irony here is the movie sanitized the books. In the book there is an organization which closely mirrors Catholic history. Their objections to the contrary, the Catholic church DOES have a history of torturing kids, among others. Go back and look at what they did in the Inquisition. It will turn your stomach, disgust you, repulse you...and possibly open your eyes. Be that as it may, the movie removes religion from the equation and turns it into just a "neutral shading towards good" versus "neutral shading towards bad" battle. And, per the director's own admission, he deliberately removed religion from the equation, exactly to forestall the firestorm that has erupted anyway. His Magesterium, indeed, the entire movie, make no reference whatsoever to religion.

Is there merit to the complaints? I have some reservations. I have been contacted by several people, including some I respect very much, who are taking what I believe to be a very dangerous tack. As many of the leading objectors have admitted, they have neither seen the movie nor read the book, yet they are objecting to content into it. What does that remind me of?

Believe it or not, it most reminds me of the tactics of some of the loudest segment of the community that regularly complains about the Bible. People talk regularly about the contradictions and historical inaccuracies in the Bible. Then, when you ask them to point them out...they admit they can't, they just know they are there, though these people have not themselves checked it out.

There is a pretty simple answer why they can't point to the contradictions...there are none. What they call contradictions are things like Matthew and Luke relating the same situation from different points of view without saying everything the other one said. There is an equally simple answer to the historical accuracies...the reverse is actually true. Archaeologists have used the Bible to find "lost cities", it has proven "impossible" accounts from the Bible (the walls of Jericho falling outward spring readily to mind) and so forth.

There are cases to be made for these alleged contradictions and historical inaccuracies...but you better do some research yourself and not blindly follow someone else's assertions. We all have axes to grind...simply finding someone grinding the same axe you are and taking their word for it is dangerous and, usually, inaccurate.

Here we get into one of the most important arenas in regard to religion. There is intentionally a lot of area that must be taken on faith. (Hebrews 11:1 Now Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.) Nobody was there to see the earth created. Both Creationists and Evolutionists take their version on faith. The evidence then conforms to whichever stance a person approaches it from. Jesus was the Son of Man and God as Man or he was the leader of a small rebellious Jewish sect who was punished for sedition depending on how a person approaches His life.

The point is...to come to either conclusion, a person is responsible for doing some research themselves. Mindlessly parroting the people who brought us Piltdown Man and Origin of the Species (one a deliberate hoax, the other a book that has been completely discredited by its followers even as they further the hypothesis it posited) without doing the research is intellectual laziness at best, intellectual dishonesty at worst.

Yet this is perilously close to how The Golden Compass is being treated. Without doing the research, many, many, many people are talking about the damage it will do...despite not having seen the movie or read the books.

The BEST argument against the movie I have seen is the books, by the author's admission, do portray the Magestarium as a religious organization who tortures children over sin, and that people who see and enjoy the movie might be persuaded to purchase the books and thus encounter atheism by stealth. That is the best of the arguments I have seen against seeing it.

So let's parse that out a bit.
1) People might enjoy the movie
Obviously there is no objection possible here. Enjoying a movie can hardly be labeled wrong. Enjoying something like Shrek the Third might call into question someones taste, but it would not be wrong.

2) They might then purchase the books
A TV movie will be seen by 3-million people and will sell more books than a screen film.
--Andy Cohen, Maui Writers Conference.

(note: the above research took a hardly life-stealing 3 minutes to find that quote)

I was interested enough in this to pursue it for a few minutes. And it seems there definitely is a large spike in book sales after a popular movie is released. It worked for the Harry Potter series*, The Lord of the Rings series**, and, indeed, the claim is made that movies do, indeed, spike book sales in general. ***

Of course, if you scrolled to the bottom and read that third quote you would notice there is a "movie version" of the book. The question, not answered here, is which version are people purchasing? For arguments sake, we will assume it is the original version.

3) The kids will then encounter a stealth-atheism that seeks to undermine their faith.
This is turning into a very powerful argument to boycott the movie. Or is it? This sounds a lot like the atheist arguments against The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005) when it was accused of sneaking religion in as entertainment. I saw the movie and I found neither religion nor entertainment, unfortunately, because I enjoyed the book.

Be that as it may, let us presume a Christian, real or accepted as such by society, child sees the movie, enjoys it and wants to purchase the books. Step up, parents. Use this as your opportunity to show them some of the temptations they will face in life.

Most likely, the proper choice is to not purchase the book. But maybe you could take another tack. Purchase the books and *gasp* read them together. This way, when you come across something objectionable you can explain why it is objectionable. Or you might find that it is hard to find the objectionable comment. This is an open question since I, like most of these parents I am speaking to, have never read the book. This might be a phenomenal teaching opportunity, a chance to provide guidance in an environment your kid WILL face in the real world once you are no longer sheltering them.

It sounds like I am defending The Golden Compass and/or its author. I am not. I have never read the book and do not intend to see the movie. Actually, until the release of the movie I never even HEARD of the book. It is not because I am unfamiliar with the world of fantasy. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman co-wrote several series of books I love, I am familiar with and enjoy the work of Stackpole, Leguin, and numerous others. I am even writing a fantasy trilogy myself. I am familiar with and love the genre, though I reject large portions of it for the same reason I don't plan to see the movie...namely, they don't entertain me. Eddings, Norton, and many other big names fall into this circle. Mercedes Lackey I can take or leave. The point is, I have read lots of their books and never come across this guy before. I have no axe to grind in defending him. In fact, I am definitely not a supporter based on his own quotes.

I just think the movie criticisms have been misdirected. My reason for not seeing the movie has nothing to do with its source. I just thought the trailers looked uninteresting. If I do see the movie, it will actually be 100% a result of the controversy raised over whether it should be seen or not and have nothing to do with the merits or lack thereof the movie has.

And that should be something to think about.






* "The greatest peak in sales of Harry Potter books took place in 2003, when sales in the UK accounted for fully 22% of the Children’s market for the year, while sales in Australia took 19% of the Children’s market and generated Aus$30.5 million in revenue for the year. This trend was largely due to the long delay in the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This was also the first new title to be released following the launch of the first Harry Potter film in November 2001, which helped catalyze a large increase in sales of the backlist titles as people caught up with the series."


**"Ballantine has sold more than 68 million copies of The Lord of the Rings (books) and The Hobbit," she says. (Jackson has said he'd like to tackle The Hobbit, the kid-friendly book prequel to Rings, after he finishes his remake of King Kong.) "The effect the film has had on the sales has been tremendous."
Consider: Ballantine sold 32 million copies of the Rings books from 1965 to 2001. But since the release of the first film two years ago, Ballantine has sold an additional 14 million — almost half as much as the entire preceding 36 years."

*** •Hooray for Hollywood. Nothing sells books more than a movie. Nineteen of the decade's best sellers were movie tie-ins. Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit, No. 36 for the decade, was a hit before the movie, and the movie fostered even more sales. The most successful books enjoy four incarnations: hardcover, paperback, movie and video/DVD.
In fact, Pat Schroeder, the former congresswoman and president of the Association of American Publishers since 1997, says, "We need to find a way to get books into movie theaters so they can sell them along with the popcorn."