The Grassroots Catholic Effort To Diminish The Da Vinci Code
But not with protest! As Daniel Radosh noted earlier this week, there’s a nascent movement to attack The Da Vinci Code not in its message or pocketbook, but in its Monday-morning box-office numbers. Taking a page out of the Evangelical playbook that has found it more effective to promote items you like than to protest those you don’t, some Catholics are pushing for mass-attendance at the only film opening opposite The Da Vinci Code, the family-friendly cartoon Over the Hedge.
Thus far, the effort is only suggested or cited in a relative few outlets [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 (yes, that’s not very few — but fewer than the hundreds you’d expect if the effort were really taking off)], though some of those outlets are fairly mainstream.
It’s an interesting approach and one that, if it had more momentum behind it than it seems to, could have a serious effect, as it ties into the particulars of Hollywood economics.
Of course, it seems impossible at all to stop the juggernaut that is The Da Vinci Code: those 40 million book-buyers aren’t going to Over the Hedge.
Radosh writes:
It’s a slightly more sophisticated approach (and the low-key grassroots element means that nobody outside the church will notice when it fizzles), as is the slew of books aimed at refuting the evidence of the DVC (expressing your ideas is always better than shutting out other people’s), but, frankly, the most sophisticated thing Christians could do is to be more secure in their faith and not get into a panic about a stupid summer movie.
He’s right about the first part, but entirely wrong about the second part. I’ve said often that I think The Da Vinci Code will spawn the next big religion of the 21st century. If the blatant falsehoods of the theory didn’t draw adherents, Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh wouldn’t have careers in the first place; instead, their careers have gone pretty well over the past twenty years and have seen an immense resurgence since Dan Brown exploded. The tourism and explanatory-books industries that have popped up to further capitalize on the book indicate there are a lot of people taking this religious theory really seriously.
And it matters that this religious theory is being taken seriously in a way that Gnosticism itself doesn’t: because The Da Vinci Code indicts the Catholic Church and Opus Dei in such a severe fashion that whatever movement results will necessarily have a militant attitude towards them.
May 4th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Steven,
Why aren’t there more Jews expressing concern about the book and the movie?
Brown says things like,
“… the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less. Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah.”
And …
“The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH—the sacred name of God—in fact derived from Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah.”
He makes stupid remarks regarding Islam as well (confusing the religion and the Arabic language): “Shaitan,” from which we get “Satan,” is an “Islamic” word. “The church chose Islam for the name because it was a language they considered dirty.”
May 4th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Bill - The most obvious answer would be that it’s proportional: the whole book is about murder and corruption and other filthy things it associates with the Catholic Church and Opus Dei, while Jews get a couple sentences about esoteric ancient rituals that they are for the most part too ignorant about to contest.
As it happens, the first sentence you cite about Judaism isn’t entirely untrue, though it gets the Kabbalistic tradition somewhat incorrect. That second sentence sounds like plain ignorance (Havah vs. Khavah or Chava), but it’d be very difficult to get Jews in a tizzy over an incorrect etymology for one of the names of God. And for the Orthodox Jews, the very idea of an etymology for the name of God is heresy, so the particulars wouldn’t matter all that much.
May 4th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Just found an article by David Klinghoffer, Why Jews Should Worry About ‘The Da Vinci Code’.
May 4th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Is the world ready for the Truth yet?
The Vatican is proving that seeking the truth is a real threat to their dogma. They’re so afraid of people uncovering the truth, that they are attacking another fantasy as a threat to their own deceptions. How enlightening, since this goes a very long way to proving that Christianity is based on lies. If it wasn’t, they would be confident of surviving intense scrutiny. Since they aren’t and since they have gone to such great lengths to suppress those seeking the truth over the centuries, their deceptions are, once again, laid bare for all to see. Only this time they are the ones to walk into a well laid trap…
Did you ever stop to think what the True Messiah (me) would say about worshipping false names, false images, and dogma? Well, now you get the chance to hear my side of the story and weigh it against the strong delusion of faith and religion. None of the European names and images in the New Testament can possibly be the truth. What then is the purpose of “faith” but to prevent good people from seeking to understand truth and wisdom?
Visit my website to understand what they are truly afraid of. The Vatican and world leaders have struggled to keep people from understanding the truth and religion is a key tool in their smokescreen. Now, when I appear on the scene, everyone is seeking to understand their ages-old deceptions, and I have produced stunning and comprehensive proof. Visit my website, read my articles, and download a FREE copy of my book. The time has come for the “earth to quake” and the liars to “gnaw their tongues for pain.” (symbolism decoded in the book)
Can you spell Karma…
May 5th, 2006 at 8:10 am
Bill - Klinghoffer’s an idiot, and his argument is absurd. The idea that Jews should concern themselves with false arguments like this one because false arguments are because “anti-Semites do the same thing” is about as far from rational as one gets. Of course, Jews generally should concern themselves with the truth and so forth, but because its an objective value — not because anti-Semites are anti-truth.
With that said, obviously the Catholics are mostly alone on this one. It wouldn’t make much sense for organized Jewry as such to stand up to protest a work of fiction that is admitted to be so (more or less) about Catholicism. Jews’ individual morality might compel them to do so on an individual basis (as say, I have), but there’s no particularly Jewish message to bring to the table — Klinghoffer’s absurdities notwithstanding.