Now Mel Gibson, the foremost authority on matters of Christian belief (yeah right,) has criticized Da Vinci Code for disparaging his beliefs. He has a lot of room to talk. What did his movie, The Passion of Christ, do if not tell a version of Christianity that is different from the beliefs of other Christian denominations, let alone all the Non-Christian religions.
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Something else is going on here. This big debate about Da Vinci Code is a smoke screen.
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First of all, lets get clear on the basics of this issue. It's RIDICULOUS to criticize fiction stories for not being true to a religious belief system. There are billions of books and stories that make-up all sorts of unreal, imaginary "facts," not only creating imaginary worlds and imaginary people, but imaginary belief systems, governments, and all the details thereof. Just because they LEAVE OUT or DO NOT INCLUDE a particular church and its beliefs, does not mean they are ANTI- or PRO-anything in the "real" world. That's like comparing lemons and plums.
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The something else that is going on here, is the disintegration of basic rights that the American Constitution declared to be the basis of our form of government--democracy--and the freedoms that the developers of the constitution wanted to preserve for a nation of individual people. Even if they meant only free, rich, white men--we have these rights and freedoms written down and can and shold apply them to every citizen in the country and extend these rights to other citizens of other countries as a vaule and ideal we believe in.
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I won"t even dip into the trashing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights by the current administration. That's way off the fear-factor and rage-inducing chart as a topic for me right now.
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The 1st Amendment of the Constitution reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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Oh, my mistake. I see that it does not insist individual citizens and other groups beside the government are prevented from prohibiting freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and establishment of religion.
The government can't make any laws like that, but every person with a voice can speak up. And after they do, it's okay to prevent everyone one else from doing the same. Oh, of course. Freedom for YOU but not for ME.
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Mel Gibson can make a movie about a controversial belief and sell it to the world, but no one else can make a movie about religion. Obviously, they have to check with Mel first to see if it fits in with his ideas. (I'll have to email him when I write my next hot romance story and see Mel thinks my characters are religious enough, and if he approves. HA, that'll be the day.)
Anyway, keeping this argument going--comparing apples to oranges--i.e., "Is Da Vinci Code blasphemous?" just keeps the citizens distracted while the real battle is overlooked.
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The real battle is, do people still have the right to WRITE what they want? Newspapers and books, including FICTION without fear of reprisals?
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Do people have the right to BELIEVE what they want about God and religion??? Or DISBELIEVE what they want about God and religion???!??!! Or are we on the verge, here, of having only ONE version of an idea stuffed down our throats and every OTHER IDEA prohibited? It doesn't matter what that one idea is, if NO ONE is allowed to think for themselves.
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Do people have the freedom to read, watch, and/or write without fear of reprisals and recrimination? (I am not advocating breaking real laws here, okay?)
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And what about fear? Do we have to be subjected to stronger and stronger propaganda and manipulated into feeling fear from everything under the sun, that is, until we turn to the government to save us from terror--a terror they created in our minds and hearts for just such a purpose?
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Eroding our freedoms starts little --bit by bit-- so watch out for those agreeable, patriotic Americans that are willing to be strip-searched and forbidden prevented from carrying fingernail clippers and cigarette lighters when they fly on planes, just so they can be "secure" from terrorists. And God-fobid another set of terroritsts try to hijack a plane? What will the honest citizens use to stop them forcefully? Plastic cups and spoons?)
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Do they not see that the people requiring these types of searches are implying that YOU yourself are a suspect? Assume that you are willing to give up a little freedom (and then a little more, and a little more) until the "saviors" like the government are not only in charge of your feelings, thoughts, shoes, and luggage but every little thing that everyone does or tries to do in this country? (Read the last part of the 1st amendment--freedom to redress the government for grievances. So we'd better speak up now, before that goes away.)
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Are we going to continue to allow the chipping away at the freedoms that our founding statesmen wrote into our form of government? Are we gonna keep putting up and shutting up?
Are we going to keep looking the other way while this continues to happen? Are we going to get lost in the smoke screens and not even notice this is happening?
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Why?
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Of course, we're now going to get into the debilitating debate over the fact that this is really happening or not. But by the time we know it IS, it'll be too late. And it won't be any fun saying "I told you so" mainly because the freedom of speech and press to say such things will be GONE as well as our rights to protest unjust practices.
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Let's be clear here. I do not mean forcefully, I do not mean illegally. I mean resistance using every legal and constitutional means available to us.
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Are we going to wake up someday and see that the only book and movie available to buy, read, watch and/or write is how great the current family-in-power is and how wonderful the big oil, big medical, big pharmaceutical corporations, big-whatevers are in the way they are "helping" the common man? (For an enormous profit, of couse.)
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I liked that bumper sticker I saw one time:
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If you aren't mad as hell, you aren't paying attention.
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I am not going to criticize writers and film makers for producing controversial, off-beat, strange, and bad art. They have the right to do that. Sometimes bad art is good.
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Personally, I am going to go out and buy another copy of Da Vinci Code and go to see the movie again, and buy the video when it comes out because I want to vote with my spending dollar for freedom of expression and freedom of entertainment.
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And hell will be frozen solid before I ever watch a Mel Gibson movie again, even if it has Tom Hanks in it, and even if it's the only thing on the television on every channel. He can make as many movies he wants on any subject, but I exercise my freedom to not have to watch them if I don't want to.
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In fact, I defend his right to make whatever stories he wants into movies.
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But I will NOT defend his right to take that right away from everyone other writer/director/producer/person.
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In writing this, I feel I'm exercising my constitutional freedom as guaranteed by the constitution. You don't have to agree with me to give me that right. You have all these rights, too.
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Use 'em or lose 'em.
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