Culture
Clips - May
16, 2006
No Passion against the Code
When Mel Gibson introduced The
Passion of the Christ into the public conversation, Hollywood
had a lot to say about it. Now Hollywood is offering its response
with the upcoming release of The DaVinci Code, inviting
commentary not on that movie, but on Hollywood itself.
Three years ago, Mel Gibson gambled
his own personal fortune on a great creative risk, going completely
outside the established Tinseltown system to produce a horrifyingly
realistic reenactment of Our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection.
It took not just sacrifice but also real courage to make this.
The studios all scoffed at the idea. The reviews were horrible
— before anyone had seen a frame of it.
Now witness the coming of the movie
version of The DaVinci Code. Think of it as the anti-Passion.
In one film, Jesus was Lord; in the other, Jesus was not only
merely mortal, he was the center of an elaborate fraud. In one
film, Jesus founded his Church at the Last Supper; in the other,
the Catholic Church unfolds as a secretive, murderous, thoroughly
evil conspiracy. So what's Hollywood's take? The reaction to this
movie is almost the exact opposite of what Gibson received.
The studios reacted quickly, with
Sony lapping up the film. The network news divisions have acted
like devoted puppies, with Matt Lauer planning to go "On
the Road with the Code" for NBC. ABC has held DaVinci
Code contests on its morning show. Denying the divinity of
Jesus — the central tenet of Christianity — is just fun and games,
grins and giggles.
No one has singled out DaVinci
Code author Dan Brown for his anti-religious and anti-Catholic
bigotry. No one put him in amateur therapy. Since he was Sony's
hired gun, no one assaulted director Ron Howard for his religious
beliefs — even if (or especially because) his acceptance of this
job suggests he has no problem directing a film smearing Jesus
or the Catholic Church.
Brent Bozell
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/
brentbozell/2006/05/12/197275.html
The DaVinci Code Debate
Tom Hanks thinks Christians shouldn't
become irate about The Da Vinci Code. He says it's just
a story, "loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of
scavenger-hunt-type nonsense." He's right, but so is an official
of the Christian Council of Korea, who said, "The Da Vinci
Code is a movie which belittles and tries to destroy Christianity."
Isn't "destroy" too grand
a word for a Tom Hanks entertainment? Maybe, but this thriller
is mounting the powerful argument that Christianity is rotten
to the core, based on lies and political conspiracy. It is surely
one of the most effective attacks on Christian faith in generations.
One of the cardinals at the Vatican said, in effect, we've had
this kind of assault before, but not addressed to such a large
audience of religious illiterates and uncritical minds.
Sony and director Ron Howard repeatedly
brushed off requests for a disclaimer at the beginning of the
film. But disclaimers are common in stories that liberally mix
fact and fiction, and there should have been one here. Martin
Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ had one, mostly
in gibberish, and in that story Jesus is merely tempted to consort
with Mary Magdalene. He doesn't marry her and raise a long line
of European royals.
The handling of Opus Dei was crude
as well. The organization has a controversial and somewhat spooky
image even within Catholicism, yet it gave great access to the
best reporter at the Vatican, John Allen, for his recent book
Opus Dei. Allen's book was ambivalent, but gave Opus Dei
credit for much good work. Among its many activities, the Opus
Dei operates 15 universities. The group's bent is authoritarian,
but it is not the sinister and murderous cult depicted in The
Da Vinci Code. Using a fictional name would have been fairer.
John Leo
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/johnleo/
2006/05/14/197276.html
--
Don’t Give us Government-Sponsored
Childcare
Here in the United States, NOW wants
Washington to subsidize daycare so women can achieve economic
parity with men. Years spent away from the workforce slow women’s
career progress and leave them dependent on partnerships with
others (like husbands) for financial support. For the feminist
gender warriors, this is intolerable outcome. And anyway, as feminist
author Kate Millet argues, children are better served by “professional”
caregivers: “The care of the young is infinitely better left to
trained professionals rather than to harried amateurs with little
time nor taste for the education of young minds.”
American parents disagree. Harried
amateurs that we are, we tend to think that young kids are better
off at home — and even many career mothers wish for more time
with their children.
A Pew Survey of mothers with children
under 18 proves the point. Overwhelmingly, the women surveyed
cited “part-time” as the ideal work arrangement. Just three in
ten preferred full-time jobs, although more than half were working
full-time. In other words, two in ten would cut back work hours
if they could. Parents instinctively feel that young children
are better off at home. The Pew survey found that most all women,
including those who worked, believed that to be the case.
Carrie Lukas
Townhall
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/CarrieLukas/
2006/05/14/197289.html
--
Feminist Menace
"No ideology in human history
has been potentially so invasive of the private sphere of life
as Feminism. Communists had little respect for privacy. Feminists
have made it their main target.
"Like other radical movements,
only more so, Feminism's danger comes not so much from the assault
on freedom (which traditional tyrannies also threaten) but specifically
from the attack on private life, especially family life (which
traditional dictatorships usually leave alone). ...
"The Left's brilliant move has
been to clothe its attack on the family as a defense of 'women
and children.' Marian Wright Edelman openly acknowledges she founded
the Children's Defense Fund to push a Leftist agenda: 'I got the
idea that children might be a very effective way to broaden the
base for change.' This climaxed in the Clinton Administration,
in which radical policy innovations were invariably justified
as 'for the children.' Using children to leverage an expansion
of state power by eliminating family privacy is succinctly conveyed
in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's aphorism, 'There is no such thing
as other people's children.'?"
Stephen Baskerville,
"Why Sex is Better than
Gender,"
http://www.freecongress.org/commentaries/2006/060511.asp
