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‘The Golden Compass’ Is a 24-Karat Controversy
by
findingDulcinea Staff
The Catholic League is urging Christians to boycott the film “The Golden Compass,” claiming the movie promotes atheism among children.
30-Second Summary
The controversy surrounding the film "The Golden Compass" was bubbling over well before the movie opened this weekend, on Dec. 7.
Based on the novel of the same name, the first in the bestselling fantasy trilogy "His Dark Materials" by British author Philip Pullman, the film was guaranteed to receive tremendous interest from both child and adult fans.
Like the books, the movie has also garnered a large number of detractors, who object to the novels’ firm stance against organized religion, and what some perceive to be an attack by Pullman—a very vocal atheist—on Christianity in particular.
"The Golden Compass" tells the story of Lyra, an intrepid tween who lives in an alternate-world version of Oxford, England, where every human soul is manifest in a visible animal form known as a daemon.
When children, including Lyra’s friend Roger, begin disappearing from England she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, travel to the far north to rescue them. She is aided by various new friends, including a witch and a talking polar bear, and her ability to read the alethiometer, a rare and greatly coveted compass-like object that has the power to sift truth from lies. Opposing her is the Magisterium, a powerful, sinister government organization that in the novel is an instrument of the Catholic Church.
Reviews of the film report that the screenwriter has almost entirely eliminated the role that religion plays in the story.
However, the Catholic League’s president, Bill Donohue, continues to advise parents to boycott the movie, fearing that the film will encourage children to pick up the books, and thus absorb what he believes to be the series’s atheistic message.
Based on the novel of the same name, the first in the bestselling fantasy trilogy "His Dark Materials" by British author Philip Pullman, the film was guaranteed to receive tremendous interest from both child and adult fans.
Like the books, the movie has also garnered a large number of detractors, who object to the novels’ firm stance against organized religion, and what some perceive to be an attack by Pullman—a very vocal atheist—on Christianity in particular.
"The Golden Compass" tells the story of Lyra, an intrepid tween who lives in an alternate-world version of Oxford, England, where every human soul is manifest in a visible animal form known as a daemon.
When children, including Lyra’s friend Roger, begin disappearing from England she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, travel to the far north to rescue them. She is aided by various new friends, including a witch and a talking polar bear, and her ability to read the alethiometer, a rare and greatly coveted compass-like object that has the power to sift truth from lies. Opposing her is the Magisterium, a powerful, sinister government organization that in the novel is an instrument of the Catholic Church.
Reviews of the film report that the screenwriter has almost entirely eliminated the role that religion plays in the story.
However, the Catholic League’s president, Bill Donohue, continues to advise parents to boycott the movie, fearing that the film will encourage children to pick up the books, and thus absorb what he believes to be the series’s atheistic message.
Headline Link: ‘The Golden Compass’ and Religion
The Associated Press reports on the Catholic League boycott of the movie, and on responses to the film from both religious and secular sources.
Source: Associated Press
Background: Catholic League organizes protest
An October press release from the Catholic League calls the books “atheism for kids” and announces a two-month protest of the film.
Source: The Catholic League
Reactions: The author responds
In an interview with Newsweek, Philip Pullman responded to the Catholic League: “Oh, it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world.”
Source: Newsweek
Opinion & Analysis: Is Pullman promoting an atheist message?
The film gets a positive review from the Catholic News Service, an editorially and financially independent division of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Source: Catholic News Service
Donna Freitas, a visiting assistant professor of religion at Boston University and coauthor of “Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials," argues in Newsweek that the series is “a theological masterpiece that is anything but anti-Christian.”
Source: Newsweek
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, condemns the film on his blog, noting that it “does represent a great challenge, but a challenge that Christians should always be ready to meet.”
Source: www.AlbertMohler.com
In his syndicated column, pundit L. Brent Bozell III calls the series a “trilogy of vicious anti-religious books.”
Source: Creators Syndicate
Catherine Seipp of the National Review argues that the books have a pagan, rather than an atheist, message and in any case are “philosophically incoherent,” particularly when compared to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books.
Source: The National Review
British columnist Peter Hitchens says the first two books in the series are “captivating and clever,” but refers to the third, the Whitbread Award-winning The Amber Spyglass, as “a disappointing clunker” and referred to Pullman as “the one the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed.”
Source: The Daily Mail
Fantasy author and practicing Mormon Brandon Sanderson says that while he does not agree with Pullman’s ideas as expressed in the books, he “enjoyed” the books anyway, and does “not believe the correct response to different ideas is to censor or boycott them.”
Source: Brandon Sanderson’s Official Blog
Salon writer and Catholic Mary Elizabeth Williams intends to take her daughters to see the film, and praises its “potentially subversive message of the power of truth telling and independent thought.”
Source: Salon.com
Reference Material: Bookstore, movie Web site and publisher
Those who wish to judge the books’ message for themselves can purchase an omnibus edition of “His Dark Materials
” from the findingDulcinea store.
” from the findingDulcinea store.
Source: Amazon.com
The movie’s official site offers a trailer, background information about the story, and several extras, including a virtual alethiometer, the golden compass of the title.
Source: 'The Golden Compass' official film site
Random House, the American publisher of "His Dark Materials," provides information about the books and the author, as well as various press materials.
Source: Random House
Rotten Tomatoes gathers film reviews of “The Golden Compass,” which are mixed.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
Key Player: Philip Pullman
The New Yorker conducted an extensive interview with Pullman in 2005, exploring his life, his work, popular responses to “His Dark Materials,” and his (primarily negative) views on “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Lord of the Rings.”
Source: The New Yorker
Related Links: Other controversial books and films
In 2006, the movie adaptation of Dan Brown’s bestselling novel “The Da Vinci Code” provoked charges of blasphemy because of a key plot point that suggested that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child together.
Source: The New York Times
Disney struggled to downplay any Christian message in the 2005 film “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” A Jewish writer reports on angry secularist responses (including Philip Pullman’s) and refuses to see the celebration of Christian values as a threat to his own faith.
Source: USA Today
A satiric article in The Onion fed recurrent fears that the Harry Potter books encouraged children to become Satanists.
Source: Snopes.com
Mel Gibson’s 2004 film depiction of Jesus’ final days, “The Passion,” touched off claims of anti-Semitism.
Source: MSNBC.com
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