When art threatens dogma

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I have to admit that I have been so out of the cultural loop that I had not even heard of the Philip Pullman trilogy upon which the movie "The Golden Compass" is based. But given all the brouhaha from certain quarters in response to the film, I rather enjoyed this comment from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford:

If your ancient, authoritarian, immutable belief system is truly threatened by a handful of popular novels, if your ostensibly all-powerful, unyielding creed is rendered meek and defenseless when faced with the story of a fiery, rebellious young girl who effortlessly rejects your stiff misogynistic religiosity in favor of adventure, love, sex, the ability to discover and define her soul on her own terms, well, it might be time for you to roll it all up and shut it all down and crawl back home, and let the divine breathe and move and dance as she sees fit.

5 comments:

Lovelyisthevoice said...

All I can say concerning this forthcoming movie is that personally it would be something of great significance and wonder, if the golden compass needle were to swing about and quite unexpectedly point beyond its cardinals at a hitherto unknown genre-breaking work titled, A Jesus of Nazareth. Now this no doubt, no need to shout would be bringing great delight to the beauteous northern lights, aurora borealis if you like. Lyrically, Richard of Eire

Jan said...

I got interested in the books after various emails criticizing came forth, which irritated me greatly. So I read the books in the series and wrotethis.

Mystical Seeker said...

Interesting comments, Jan. I see that you liked the books. It is hard for me to comment on them since I haven't read them, but when people react so shrilly to a movie that is a fictional work of art, it does make me want to go out and see the movie.

John Shuck said...

What a great quote! Thanks for posting that...

episcopalifem said...

FWIW, I also loved these stories.

Enjoyed them immensely, and agree wholeheartedly with this reviewer.

They are FICTION.