I was a forwarded an article at Lifesite discussing how people are calling for the NCCBUSCC movie reviewer to be fired for giving The Golden Compass movie a favorable review. I went and looked at the review as it is currently manifested on the Bishops' Website. It might be that the Bishops altered or revised the review since it went up, but I have to confess that if this is the review that has caused the furor, it might be a tempest in a teapot. The review repeatedly flags Pullman's anti-Catholic agenda, and recommends that parents use the books as an opportunity to discuss the problems with its philosophy (which seems a much better idea than to teach children to run away screaming every time someone uses cartoon animals to attack their religious beliefs). The reviewer notes that most of the anti-Church sentiment of the book has been stripped from the script and warns that the sequels will probably have a hard time being so inoffensive--as it is, however, the reviewer suggests it is a good film (I suppose if Hollywood always ruins film adaptations of books and misses their point, then it only makes sense that ruining an offensive book would create a good movie).
The critic even goes so far as to point out that, as far as movies have been concerned, there have been far more anti-Catholic films that have gotten even less attention from Catholic groups (such as the absurd sequel to Elizabeth).
My point here is not really to defend the critic or the movie for that matter (as I said, I don't know if this is the same review that caused all this angst). My point is just that I smell something of a witch hunt brewing around this movie, and we have to be careful lest we end up looking like the irrational, foolish, self-serving, conspiratorial, and authoritarian Church that Pullman paints us out to be.
As Catholics, we put up with a lot of nonsense from our cultural artifacts. It makes sense to me that there would be a lot of our brothers and sisters who are itching for some kind of scapegoat to unleash their pent up aggression.
Instead of getting red-in-the-face angry about this book/movie/action figure franchise, we should be able to laugh at its absurdity and self-importance and find ways to deconstruct it so that we show how Pullman's text is actually at odds with his own intents.
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