Posted on 05/17/2006 6:31:30 PM PDT by ND-Mystery
Religious activists call for boycott of Da Vinci Code film
WASHINGTON Religious activists are calling for a boycott of "The Da Vinci Code" movie. Three Catholics, two Protestants and a Jew took turns denouncing the film at a news conference in Washington. They called it misleading, blasphemous and deeply insulting to Christians.
The Reverend Thomas Euteneuer (EYE'-tun-ow-ur) said that if a movie treated Muhammad and Islam the way "The Da Vinci Code" treats Jesus and Christianity, "the whole world would be up in arms."
Ted Baehr of the Christian Film and Television Commission said people don't need to see "The Da Vinci Code" to feel informed about it. In his words, "You don't have to put your foot in the trap or in manure to know that it's manure."
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yeah, I read the book, and it was entertaining.
Mary Magdelene is now my favorite squeeze!
LoL...I won't go there, Candor. Nope, won't do it! ;)
At minimum, the makers of the movie ought to send a thank you e-mail to each and every one of those activists. Free publicity.
Cause, apparently, some folks didn't get it the first 57 times and still think all this amounts to anything. Like I said on another thread, the Godfather has been out for 34 years and somehow folks can still look at my last name and not assume I'm mobbed up. Imagine that, folks recognize that it's fiction (or, for those who can't quite grasp the concept, FICTION).
You might notice--curses, demon possession, cults are out of favor these days. The number of priests and shamans able to deliver really effective curses is much reduced.
Back in the 1970s, if you wanted to make sure that every teen from Maryland to Oregon would see the movie, you got the Catholic Indecency League to ban it.
It always amazes me how self-righteous censors shoot themselves in the foot again and again and again and again.
Why do they never learn? Probably they get so much fun from puffing up their chests to promote their "righteousness" and "morality" that they are blinded to reality. Stupid is as stupid does.
The producers are ROTFL all the way to the bank.
The idea that the calls for boycotting this pathetic film are giving it publicity it otherwise wouldn't have had, and will thus boost it at the box office, is silly. It's getting loads of free publicity in the liberal media. It has a cult following. The calls for a boycott, while unnecessary, aren't helping the film expand beyond its gullible base.
And you're right. Everyone knows it's fiction. These people who scream "It's FICTION" every time someone criticizes this movie are missing the point as much as Natalie Maines did when she claimed "free speech" to justify her idiotic statements in Europe. Free speech would've been the issue if she had been arrested for her statements upon returning to America, or if anyone had suggested that she be jailed for what she said. But that's not what happened. What happened was that people said, "Hey Natalie, your statements show you to be an idiot, so I'm not gonna buy your lame music anymore!" In other words, people just exercised their free speech rights to tell Natalie what they thought of her.
In the case of THE DA VINCI CODE, when someone calls it a lie and a smear of the church, people pop up and say, "It's FICTION!" As if that's a reasonable response to the argument. It's just as silly as Natalie's "free speech" defense. Something can be fiction and still be a lie and a smear, especially when the author goes around claiming that the story is based on legitimate historical research. Brown's claim is a bald-faced lie, and that alone is enough to justify the criticism thrown his way.
But beyond that, the story itself is a smear, and it's perfectly appropriate for people who are offended by the smear to speak out against it. Hollywood churns out anti-Christian crap way too often and Christians have every right to respond. In this case we're dealing with a deliberate, bullying, cowardly, and dishonorable book and movie designed to make millions of people feel badly about their faith. A film that treated Islam like this would never see the light of day. And it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference that it was FICTION.
Michael Moore lied about President Bush in FAHRENHEIT 9/11. He claimed his lying piece of propaganda was a truthful documentary. Would it have been any better if he'd produced a film that was technically FICTION, but which showed an actor playing President Bush colluding with the Taliban to build an oil pipeline (one of FAHRENHEIT's claims)? What if he then went on the talk shows and said that while the movie was a fictionalized treatment, it was based on events which really took place, which he uncovered via painstaking historical research? It would've been just as much of a lie and just as dishonorable.
The "it's FICTION" excuse is as lame as any bad argument that's ever been offered on this message board.
No need to boycott this turkey. People are betting that the cheap slasher movie coming out this weekend gets better reviews. Hell, I think GIGLI ended up with a 7% ranking at Rotten Tomatoes. DA VINCI could still move up some, and probably will rise a little, but at its current 6% it's in the range of atrocities such as BATTLEFIELD EARTH.
Late report: THE DA VINCI CODE has risen to a still awful 17% rating, based on two new positive reviews. One wasn't really all that positive. Just a slight thumbs up, describing the film as being about as good as could be expected given the source novel. The other review was very positive, but it came from some cultish spirituality journal which praised the film for giving us a glimpse of the Divine Feminine, or some such nonsense.
Where's L. Ron Hubbard when we really need him?
thats a ridiculous liberal comparision.
Oh really? The movie looks like a bomb and would unlikely to make much money at the box office.
I think they should not boycott it , they should ridicule it and say "it is so bad it is not worth the effort."
(this is what the Athens Bar Assoc when they considered suing under european cultural protection laws of Oliver Stones bomb 'alexander'. The simply came out and said this movie is SO bad a lawsuit would help it.)
Seriously how can you take a movie that has a Smart car in a car chase as "cool" as a worthwhile movie.
There is no joking around with the Divine. This is not whether Hanky and Opie or Hollyweird enrich themselves from the the pockets of their fellow dupes.
Christians absolutely need to protest this derivative abomination at every turn.
It is insidious...and if the protests result in more people going to see it...then more people will be aware of the evil that confronts the world.
It's in hopes that something kicks in your brain and you realize you are spending so much time and energy creating an uprising against a bedtime story.
Yes, it would be.
A bedtime story?
Is Snow White a bedtime story? Is The Little Engine that Could a bedtime story? Is Hansel and Gretel a bedtime story?
We will all be converted to gnosticism!!! Dan Brown will rule the Earth!!! Oh the humanity!!!
How would it be any better, particularly if Moore made the claim that his technically fictional film was based on real life events he had uncovered via painstaking research?
It always amazes me how folks conflate censorship and judgement.
Here's the secret: folks just like getting worked up about movies. They were mad about Brokeback Mountain, they were mad about Fahrenheit 9/11, they were mad about the re-make of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They enjoy being worked up over movies.
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