The Golden Compass
Ok, so the Golden Compass movie is coming out this weekend, and the religious worriers are up in arms about it. Author Philip Pullman is an atheist/satanist, and the books supposedly further that agenda. Ok, so what? They're stories.
There's a lot of evil that gets done in stories. Faust makes a deal with the devil and gets all kinds of earthly rewards for it. Darth Vader blows up Alderan. Thomas Covenant rapes Lena. But that doesn't mean that partakers of these works of fiction are going to become devil worshippers, world-destroyers or rapists.
Instead of grousing about this movie, parents should point out to their children that this is NOT real. No world in "His Dark Materials" is the real world. Even the closest, the one John Perry comes from, isn't the real world! The real world doesn't have subtle knives, or holes to other worlds, or tiny particles that react the way dust does. The whole book is a fantasy, and must be read as a fantasy.
Sure, children are young and impressionable. That's why parents must actually parent. Many things in the world add to the collected jumble inside the mind of each person. People are constantly bombarded by images from TV, radio, friends, parents, co-workers, books, magazines, newspapers, internet, etc. etc. etc. The addition of this one trilogy isn't going to tip the balance much, and if it does, the child was in trouble to begin with because the parent's parenting skills were not up to snuff.
Consider the teacher in Sudan who was imprisoned for naming a teddy bear "Muhammed", or the outrage at the Muhammed cartoons. Americans generally (rightly) recognize those situations as ludicrous. We'd be outraged if something similar happened in the US. The wonderful thing about our culture is its openness. Pullman CAN write a trilogy in which his fictional representation of God is killed, without fear of imprisonment or death. And people can respond with protests and argument.
Neither side of this argument merits censorship. I am a Christian. I have read the books and I plan to see the movie. "His Dark Materials" is not even an argument against religion because it does not portray religion as it truly is, but some fantasy/nightmare of religion. My faith won't be shaken by non-arguments or cariacatures of God and the church. Instead, I will enjoy the movie as a story, period.
There's a lot of evil that gets done in stories. Faust makes a deal with the devil and gets all kinds of earthly rewards for it. Darth Vader blows up Alderan. Thomas Covenant rapes Lena. But that doesn't mean that partakers of these works of fiction are going to become devil worshippers, world-destroyers or rapists.
Instead of grousing about this movie, parents should point out to their children that this is NOT real. No world in "His Dark Materials" is the real world. Even the closest, the one John Perry comes from, isn't the real world! The real world doesn't have subtle knives, or holes to other worlds, or tiny particles that react the way dust does. The whole book is a fantasy, and must be read as a fantasy.
Sure, children are young and impressionable. That's why parents must actually parent. Many things in the world add to the collected jumble inside the mind of each person. People are constantly bombarded by images from TV, radio, friends, parents, co-workers, books, magazines, newspapers, internet, etc. etc. etc. The addition of this one trilogy isn't going to tip the balance much, and if it does, the child was in trouble to begin with because the parent's parenting skills were not up to snuff.
Consider the teacher in Sudan who was imprisoned for naming a teddy bear "Muhammed", or the outrage at the Muhammed cartoons. Americans generally (rightly) recognize those situations as ludicrous. We'd be outraged if something similar happened in the US. The wonderful thing about our culture is its openness. Pullman CAN write a trilogy in which his fictional representation of God is killed, without fear of imprisonment or death. And people can respond with protests and argument.
Neither side of this argument merits censorship. I am a Christian. I have read the books and I plan to see the movie. "His Dark Materials" is not even an argument against religion because it does not portray religion as it truly is, but some fantasy/nightmare of religion. My faith won't be shaken by non-arguments or cariacatures of God and the church. Instead, I will enjoy the movie as a story, period.
posted by AppleJuiceFool | 11:35 AM
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