A couple of weeks ago, Cindy and I saw The Da Vinci Code. Like the book, the movie is making oodles of money, and upsetting a lot of people of faith, including religiosity salesman Ted Baehr who calls it “Dan Brown’s hate-filled, fictitious attack on Jesus Christ, Christianity, the Bible, Christians and history” (because, you know, it’s not like the Church has ever meddled with history for its own ends or anything). Just do a Google search and you’ll see that a lot of people are protesting The Da Vinci Code. If people really, truly wanted to do some good in the world, they should have been out there protesting Big Mamma’s House 2.
On a side note, the phrase “fictitious attack on Jesus Christ” seems a little odd to me. Isn’t a “fictitious attack” an attack that never happened? Then again, it’s the right phrase in the sense that Crispies are imagining that Dan Brown is attacking them.
I’m with Bob Higgins, who has a nice little piece about Baehr and The Da Vinci Code over at Political Cortex. He says, “What is so frightening to these folks about a work of fiction is a mystery to me unless they fear fiction because they have always been afraid that they have based their entire lives on a work of fiction. I just don’t know.”
Well, neither do I, Bob. Neither do I.
Or so I thought.
Then I realized that The Da Vinci Code is not just a bunch of made up stuff, but filled with many factual details. For example, did you know there really was a Council of Nicea? Okay, maybe you did. But what about Templar Knights? Yeah, I know, too easy. But did you know there really is a place called Paris, France? Or that there is an actual painting called the Mona Lisa by a guy named Leonardo da Vinci?
I began looking through some other books I have on the shelf, trying to find other instances where writers have used real places and events in a not-real way. Using the Internets, I finally found something. Through extensive research, I discovered that dinosaurs did, at one point in time, rule the earth. I also learned that both DNA and Costa Rica do exist. However, I was very disappointed (and disillusioned) when I found out that Jurassic Park was just a made-up place, even though Costa Rica is real.
Dammit! How can it be legal for writers — especially fiction writers — to fuck with our minds like that? Mixing fact and fiction? What the hell’s up with that?
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Does this also mean that the chocolate river from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory doesn’t exhist either?
Well, chocolate exists. And rivers exist. Soooo…
You know my Grandma said she knew it was Fiction, and that the reason that Christians are protesting the movie is because they would hate to lose anyone’s soul because someone might get the movie confused with what Jesus really did and what the Bible says. Haven’t Christians been fighting about that for thousands of years already? I mean even the disciples can’t agree on most things. Everyone’s stories are just a little bit different.
Considering that a lot of the things in the book (and movie) are based on well-known histories and theories, I think the real problem the church has with the story is that it might cause people to start questioning what they have always been taught, and the church would lose some influence over their lives.
BTW, I think it’s kind of funny, but mostly scary, how many Americans still represent Jesus as a caucasian with black hair and blue eyes.