by
Jon M. Sweeney
Hollywood executives have learned something about how religion
sells. Long gone are the days of Cecil B. DeMille, when people
would flock to see an epic film about the life of Jesus or
Moses. The grand story of the Bible has been overexposed and
de-mythologized too much to still appeal to the world-weary
film-goer seeking entertainment today.
But controversy sells religion, just as controversy sells
movies, and most everything else.
Hollywood
learned this lesson by Mel Gibson’s example.
Gibson was a master at manipulating the media—and even
Christian and Jewish religious leaders—in making The
Passion of the Christ the largest grossing religious movie
of all time. That was two years ago.
The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,
which was
released last year before Christmas, failed to meet
its enormous box office expectations largely because the marketers
tried to reach Gibson’s largely conservative Christian
audience, but without the help of controversy. The film earned
$281 million at the domestic box office, but that pales in
comparison to The Passion of the Christ and its $370 million.
One wonders if a campaign suggesting that Lewis’s story
foretold specifics of the end-times or that his intentions
were somehow anti-Semitic would have brought more people to
the theater seats.
I
remember going to see Martin Scorsese’s film The
Last Temptation of Christ, back in 1988 at a theater in Chicago
and walking by hoards of devout protestors who were cordoned
off with police tape. People were kneeling on the sidewalk
praying for my soul as I stood in line waiting to enter the
theater. The movie was actually quite awful; I wouldn’t
have seen it without the curiosity of what all the hubbub was
about.
Now, soon to come from Hollywood—starring the great
Tom Hanks—is the movie version of the most controversial
book of our time. The Da Vinci Code has riled up Christian
clergy of all denominations who have claimed that, even though
the book may be written as a novel, it debases the Christian
faith, the Catholic Church, the holiness of Jesus, and is
being taken as fact by millions of readers.
Anyone
who worships in a church today knows that these Christian
complainers have a point. People who once read the Bible without
questioning it, have indeed taken Dan Brown’s word for
fact—or, at least, for reasonable proof that there might
be plenty of things that the experts have kept hidden all of
these centuries.
Sony
Pictures worldwide release date for The Da Vinci Code movie
is May
19. But as Laurie Goodstein reported in the New
York Times last week (Feb. 9), “Sony has decided to hand
a big bullhorn to the detractors.” Starting last week,
the studio went live with a website of its own creation: thedavincicodechallenge.com intended to stir up the conversation and controversy about
the movie three months before its release. Dozens of articles
are there for those who want to explore everything that is
doctrinally and historically “wrong” about the
novel, and the subsequent screenplay.
On
the site, there are links to newspaper articles explaining
how various Christian groups have debunked the novel, and
others that chronicle what an effect the book has had
on worldwide
tourism to the sites featured prominently in it (such as
The Louvre, in Paris).
Most
of the articles are written by evangelical Protestant Christians,
including Dr. Richard
Mouw, president of Fuller
Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. His essay “Should
Christians Read The Da Vinci Code?” argues that Christians
should read the novel in order to be able to speak eloquently
about it with their friends at the water-cooler.
As
Mouw makes his point, his explanation of what effect the
novel
and the film may have on Christians cannot help
but
build the audience for both:
