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

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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

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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