A really dangerous series of books has become popular. The first book is so innocuous that many people give it to their children. The tale begins with a couple of innocent kids exploring the simple goodness of the world around them. Soon they find out that humans are not alone in the universe, and that there are other realms we cannot see. They discover that their world is full of warring factions, evil spirits, armies of good and bad angels, conniving witches, greedy kings and corrupt religious establishments. The series reaches a furious climax with the characters committing the most heinous act you can imagine: They kill God.
Perhaps you received an email titled “Do not see The Golden Compass!” According to the apocalyptic warning, the movie and the books are a trap designed to tear children away from the bosom of Christ. But the above passage is not a review of “The Golden Compass.” It is a summary of the Bible.
Yet it is not the Bible that has people up in arms. The Catholic League is boycotting “The Golden Compass” for fear that it may encourage children to read the author’s books.
League president Bill Donohue wrote, “Atheism for kids. That is what Philip Pullman sells. It is his hope that ‘The Golden Compass,’ which stars Nicole Kidman and opens December 7, will entice parents to buy his trilogy as a Christmas gift.”
Donohue’s statement almost sounds like a plug for Pullman’s work – complete with celebrity name-dropping and opening date. In an age of X-box and continuous television programming, a movie that makes children want to read is a godsend. A movie that inspires parents to buy books rather than lead-tainted toys for Christmas would normally be greeted with eagerness.
But are the books really atheism for kids? In a 2002 interview with Huw Spanner of Thirdway, Philip Pullman said, “I’m not making an argument, or preaching a sermon or setting out a political tract: I’m telling a story.”
What a rich, vibrant story he tells! I’ve read the award-winning trilogy with my family. When I say “with my family” you should picture mild bickering over who lost whose place, mad chases around the house, and excited dinner conversations that invariably end with, “Don’t tell me! I’m not there yet.”
The movie is based on the first book, The Golden Compass, but the dire warning is directed at the third book, The Amber Spyglass. According to the email circulating through millions of inboxes, it is in the third book that the characters kill God.
For the sake of argument, suppose they really do kill God. Any movie with God as a character cannot be atheistic. Atheists, by definition, do not believe that God exists. Thus The Tale of Peter Rabbit is more atheistic than The Golden Compass.
Should Christians be offended by the killing of God? Our entire religion is based on it. Remember Jesus? The Bible plainly and repeatedly asserts that God came to earth in human form and we killed him. All Christians, by definition, believe that people killed God.
Actually, the characters in this book do not kill God. The Authority is in fact an angel, not the immortal Creator. He is very old and ready to die, but is being used by the Church for its own purposes. When two children release him, his angelic body dissolves back into the universe.
Paul talks about The Authority in Romans. He calls it the law. According to Paul, the law was good for teaching us right from wrong, but it became a yoke of slavery because of our inability to comply. The law brings death. Christ came to bring us life, freeing us from the law of sin and death. Jesus greatly disrupted the religious establishment of that day, which was based on the law.
Pullman’s trilogy is theologically provocative, but none of the three books attack true Christianity. In fact, his tale reflects the biblical story of humankind. Will and Lyra explicitly represent Adam and Eve – not only in the fall from grace, but also in redemption. The Apostle Paul calls Jesus “the second Adam.” Adam is the original transgressor, but Adam is also the bringer of salvation.
There are other parallels as well. In the third book, Lyra and Will descend into the underworld to free those souls who have been trapped by death. In order to do so, they must be willing to be torn away from their very spirits, undergoing a sort of death. This is similar to the torment Jesus experienced on the cross when he was separated from the divine to descend into hell and destroy death for our sake.
Pullman may not profess a literal belief in the Bible, but we find biblical themes running throughout his literature. This is not surprising, considering that he was raised by his grandfather who was an Anglican rector. Pullman names Milton’s “Paradise Lost” as one of the works that inspired the trilogy.
These books are not a consistent parallel to the Bible by any means. Neither are The Chronicles of Narnia, which Christians everywhere praise, study, and use as the basis of English curriculum.
Likewise, The Lord of the Rings has been embraced by the same people who battled to censor the magical Harry Potter series. Although The Lord of the Rings contains a similar mix of myth and magic, its defenders claim it holds a Christian message. Author J.R.R. Tolkien adamantly opposed such an interpretation during his lifetime. He said, “I dislike allegory whenever I smell it.”
Why do Christians defend some fantasy books as harmless magical tales while others are condemned as occultist books? Michael D. O’Brien, Catholic author and fantasy critic, makes this distinction: The Lord of the Rings is acceptable for Christians because the magic exists within a distinct hierarchy. Harry Potter’s magic is anti-Christian because anyone can obtain it through education and exercise. In other words, the Catholic Church does not really mind your child reading about witches or warlocks. That’s a clever ruse to oppose any books that don’t tow the line regarding ecclesiastical hierarchy. Given this distinction, it is clear why Pullman is drawing Catholic ire.
The Golden Compass portrays a very corrupt church that wields unchecked political power. In an interview, Pullman gave the Taliban as a real-life example of such a church. The term “Catholic” is not used in the book or movie, so any church that identifies with the depiction is essentially condemning itself.
The Vatican claims Roman Catholicism is the only true church, so its visceral reaction is to spin any criticism of itself as an attack against God. It’s difficult to imagine that a mere storybook could mar a reputation which already includes hundreds of years of church-sanctioned slaughter, inquisition, witch-hunts, slavery, pedophilia and misogyny.
The emails urge me to pass on the message, so I believe I will: Don’t see this movie! At least not until you’ve read the book. You certainly should not see it this weekend, because you might get ahead of me in line.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Between the (Head)lines
A Canton, Georgia headline reads, “Couple, child victims of apparent murder-suicide.” The headline is sanitized and de-sexed, suggesting that everyone involved is a victim, as if none of the three were to blame. The headline does not tell us who shot who, but we all know. It is not just that 94% of murder-suicides are male on female. It is the headline that gives it away, by what is left unsaid. If the shooter had been female, the headline would read “Woman murders husband, leaves baby to starve.” As another example, consider two arrests that were made Easter weekend. The male-on-female murder was noted in this gender-neutral manner: “Arrest made in teens’ death.” But when three women were arrested for delivering a baby and discarding it, that headline read: “NY sisters arrested in baby’s death.”
Acts of violence by women against men are still extraordinary enough to rate “Man bites dog” news status. When Lorena Bobbitt was arrested for maiming her husband, that story was a great headline-grabber. News of the forced abortion and the continual abuse she had endured at his hands -- so horrible that the judge chose to acquit her for the attack -- barely made a ripple on the news radar.
The media gender bias extends beyond perpetrators; it is also evident in the treatment of victims. Consider the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The world was outraged at the discovery that priests were molesting altar boys. We barely noticed that they victimized girls, too. One priest raped numerous teenage girls upon the altar, yet it was boys who made the news. Defenders of the Roman Catholic Church note that children are more likely to be sexually victimized by school teachers than by their priest or pastor. Yet public outrage against student sex abuse has never risen to the level of calling it a scandal. The difference? Girls are the usual target.
Abu Ghraib stands as the strongest testament to the media neglect of female victimization. Emblazoned on our collective consciousness are the images of abused and humiliated men, out of context with Lynndie England’s thumbs-up and happy camper smile. But where are the photos and the stories of the women who were tortured at Abu Ghraib? Perhaps you’ll have to look it up, as I did, but women were (and still are) incarcerated in Abu Ghraib. Many women were stripped of their clothes, tortured, raped, and sexually humiliated right along with the men. A 70-year-old Iraqi woman was harnessed and ridden like donkey. But it was only violence against women, so it did not make the front page.
When mentioned at all, the abuse of women at Abu Ghraib is downplayed. The Taguba report makes no bones about the sadistic torture inflicted on male Abu Ghraib prisoners. As for the women, the report includes an innocuous-sounding admission of “a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.” The legal term for such an event is rape, because the law recognizes that a prisoner cannot give meaningful consent to an armed guard. Acts against males that involved penetration were termed rape, but the rape of women was categorized as sex. The women who have been released alive went home tight-lipped. After all, this is a culture where a rape victim’s family often stones her to death in order to restore their “honor.”
Journalists tell us about violence against women in the passive voice, as if these things just happen. Consider “school shootings.” Schools don’t get shot; people do. And someone does the shooting. The shooters are nearly always male (boy students or sometimes a man from the community) and the victims are predominantly female. Sometimes the shooters even excuse the males and shoot girls exclusively. Very few media outlets have noted the gender component, preferring instead to imagine that school shootings are senseless or random acts of violence.
Another passive term the media likes is “domestic disputes.” This one sounds like two people on an equal playing field, who are having a bit of trouble working something out. Yet we most often hear this term after the discovery of a dead body (usually female), e.g. “The couple had a history of domestic disputes.” To me, a domestic dispute is what happens when somebody uses up all the hot water on a Sunday morning. The term does not adequately describe what it is like for a woman to be dragged through her house by her hair, choked, or threatened by a person who may be twice her size. Journalists should avoid using vague, sexless terms like “domestic dispute” and instead write strong sentences such as, “Police reports indicate this was not the first time the man choked his wife.”
Statisticians are also guilty of using this neutered, passive vocabulary. For example, they inform us that 1 out of 3 girls “will be sexually victimized” before age 18. Although sexual abusers are almost invariably male, we do not read that “Men sexually abuse 1 out of 3 girls before the age of 18.” Nor do we ever hear the percentage of men who abuse. We read about women in the military “getting raped,” not about “male soldiers raping their female comrades.”
If my rephrasing of these sentences disturbs readers, it should. We should be very disturbed that there are men in our midst, in this very community, perhaps at our church or our children’s schools, who perpetrate crimes against women and children we know. According to the CDC, men commit over 90% of the sexual violence in America against victims who are 78% female. Every year, American men kill 1,000 wives or girlfriends and rape or sexually abuse hundreds of thousands more.
Male-on-female violence is pervasive and is mostly ignored by our society. We cannot adequately address it by talking about how many women are abused. The problem is not abused women. The problem is abusive men.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
On the Other Hand
April, 2007
Acts of violence by women against men are still extraordinary enough to rate “Man bites dog” news status. When Lorena Bobbitt was arrested for maiming her husband, that story was a great headline-grabber. News of the forced abortion and the continual abuse she had endured at his hands -- so horrible that the judge chose to acquit her for the attack -- barely made a ripple on the news radar.
The media gender bias extends beyond perpetrators; it is also evident in the treatment of victims. Consider the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The world was outraged at the discovery that priests were molesting altar boys. We barely noticed that they victimized girls, too. One priest raped numerous teenage girls upon the altar, yet it was boys who made the news. Defenders of the Roman Catholic Church note that children are more likely to be sexually victimized by school teachers than by their priest or pastor. Yet public outrage against student sex abuse has never risen to the level of calling it a scandal. The difference? Girls are the usual target.
Abu Ghraib stands as the strongest testament to the media neglect of female victimization. Emblazoned on our collective consciousness are the images of abused and humiliated men, out of context with Lynndie England’s thumbs-up and happy camper smile. But where are the photos and the stories of the women who were tortured at Abu Ghraib? Perhaps you’ll have to look it up, as I did, but women were (and still are) incarcerated in Abu Ghraib. Many women were stripped of their clothes, tortured, raped, and sexually humiliated right along with the men. A 70-year-old Iraqi woman was harnessed and ridden like donkey. But it was only violence against women, so it did not make the front page.
When mentioned at all, the abuse of women at Abu Ghraib is downplayed. The Taguba report makes no bones about the sadistic torture inflicted on male Abu Ghraib prisoners. As for the women, the report includes an innocuous-sounding admission of “a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.” The legal term for such an event is rape, because the law recognizes that a prisoner cannot give meaningful consent to an armed guard. Acts against males that involved penetration were termed rape, but the rape of women was categorized as sex. The women who have been released alive went home tight-lipped. After all, this is a culture where a rape victim’s family often stones her to death in order to restore their “honor.”
Journalists tell us about violence against women in the passive voice, as if these things just happen. Consider “school shootings.” Schools don’t get shot; people do. And someone does the shooting. The shooters are nearly always male (boy students or sometimes a man from the community) and the victims are predominantly female. Sometimes the shooters even excuse the males and shoot girls exclusively. Very few media outlets have noted the gender component, preferring instead to imagine that school shootings are senseless or random acts of violence.
Another passive term the media likes is “domestic disputes.” This one sounds like two people on an equal playing field, who are having a bit of trouble working something out. Yet we most often hear this term after the discovery of a dead body (usually female), e.g. “The couple had a history of domestic disputes.” To me, a domestic dispute is what happens when somebody uses up all the hot water on a Sunday morning. The term does not adequately describe what it is like for a woman to be dragged through her house by her hair, choked, or threatened by a person who may be twice her size. Journalists should avoid using vague, sexless terms like “domestic dispute” and instead write strong sentences such as, “Police reports indicate this was not the first time the man choked his wife.”
Statisticians are also guilty of using this neutered, passive vocabulary. For example, they inform us that 1 out of 3 girls “will be sexually victimized” before age 18. Although sexual abusers are almost invariably male, we do not read that “Men sexually abuse 1 out of 3 girls before the age of 18.” Nor do we ever hear the percentage of men who abuse. We read about women in the military “getting raped,” not about “male soldiers raping their female comrades.”
If my rephrasing of these sentences disturbs readers, it should. We should be very disturbed that there are men in our midst, in this very community, perhaps at our church or our children’s schools, who perpetrate crimes against women and children we know. According to the CDC, men commit over 90% of the sexual violence in America against victims who are 78% female. Every year, American men kill 1,000 wives or girlfriends and rape or sexually abuse hundreds of thousands more.
Male-on-female violence is pervasive and is mostly ignored by our society. We cannot adequately address it by talking about how many women are abused. The problem is not abused women. The problem is abusive men.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
On the Other Hand
April, 2007
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