I can hardly wait to see the movie, The Golden Compass. It is based on the first of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy novels. Back in August, Ruel De Vera wrote a review on the trilogy in the Inquirer. In his review, entitled Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, he said that the trilogy “may be ripe for discovery by readers who have witnessed the end of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series.”

Although I am a fan of make-believe worlds and realms, this is not the main reason why I’m excited to see the movie. The reason why I want to see the movie is that some Church leaders have started a campaign to boycott the movie which will be released on December 7, 2007. According to them, Pullman’s objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. And although anti-religious sentiments are not so obvious in the movie, religious conservatives are afraid that unsuspecting viewers might be tricked into buying Pullman’s books which have been called “Atheism for Kids”.

The Forbidden Fruit
Throughout history, Church leaders have proven to be excellent judges in selecting materials that are “not appropriate” for their believers. In fact, they are the best in marketing bestsellers. For as soon as they declare something as “forbidden”, millions of people will be so intrigued. And we can’t help but rush to the nearest bookstore or movie theater and spend our hard-earned money to read it or see it. We need to know what the fuss is all about.

It all started in 1564 when Pope Pius IV issued the “Index of Forbidden Books” - a list of literary materials that Catholics are not allowed to read. This Index was created to protect the faithful from works that are “dangerous” to beliefs and morals. Authors and books that were promoting liberal ideas were condemned. Any Catholic guilty of reading/seeing any part of any forbidden material, commits a mortal sin.

Here are some of the “condemned” authors and their works:
1 . Victor Hugo - Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame
2. Charles Louis de Montesquieu - The Spirit of the Laws (a work that greatly influenced Jefferson, Hamilton and John Jay)
3. Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason
4. John Locke - An Essay on Human Understanding
5. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters and Pensees (only the edition with notes by Voltaire)
6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract and Emile

Here are some of the “condemned” philosophers/authors (all their works were “condemned”)
1. Francis Bacon - the Father of the Modern Scientific Method
2. Rene Descartes - developed the Cartesian coordinate system
3. Thomas Hobbes - proposed that social authority can come from the people not just from monarchy
4. Francois Voltaire - one of the leaders of the “Enlightenment”
5. Jean-Paul Sartre - Father of existentialism (the essence of existence is founded in human experience and consciousness)
6. Auguste Comte - Father of sociology

We’ve all been exposed to at least one of the ideas and the works of the abovementioned authors. Looks like we will all be burning in hell.

Not So Effective
The Index is no longer maintained by the Vatican and it was stopped in 1966 mainly because it was not effective in stopping believers from reading the forbidden materials. In fact, it had the opposite effect.

Whenever organized religion protests against a book or a movie, it gets more publicity, and naturally, more people buy it. Our modern-day example would be Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ.” Jews all over the world potested the movie saying it was anti-Jewish. This generated a lot of publicity for the movie, even here in the Philippines. And although many Filipinos are more than familiar with the story of Jesus’ passion and suffering, the film was the biggest opening movie in 2004, grossing P51M in five days.

Betting my Bottom Dollar
It’s possible that chuch leaders in the Philippines will support the boycott campaign against The Golden Compass. It’s possible that this campaign could succeed or it might achieve the opposite effect. As for me, the buzz created by church leaders in the US has already piqued my curiosity. Come opening day, I’ll be in line to buy my ticket.

See you at the movies!

 Email This Post        Print This Post