Well the weekend that heralded the gigantic opening of Ron Howard's cinematization of Dan Brown's Catholic smear tome The DaVinci Code has finally come and gone. Whew. Now I can't wait until it's three months from now and everyone has forgotten about this. Course there's always that second media campaign with the release of the DVD to look forward to.
The movie made $77 million in the United States (which is not anywhere close to what The Passion of the Christ made in the US in its opening days). The DaVinci Load of Crap also grossed $147 million everywhere else in the world, including recordbreaking sales in Italy and Spain.
We saw this coming of course. And now the Church is bracing for all sorts of confusion and misconceptions on the part of the folks who watch the movie and don't know that what they're watching is about as grounded in reality as Fox's 24, which, by the way, has featured public service announcements from Kiefer Sutherland (AKA Jack "If everyone followed his instructions the show would be called 12" Bauer) inviting people to recognize that most Muslims and Arabs are in fact ordinary decent people. Anything like that from Ron Howard? Tom Hanks? Dan Brown? Course not. Why not?
Sorry I know I've covered this ground before but I feel the need to say it again: When it's Christians and Catholics being maligned in a Hollywood load of crap it's cool, it's in demand, or at least it's "just entertainment." But when it's Muslims or homosexuals or anybody else you can't portray anything less than the highest nobility without being expected to run a public service announcement. And there's nothing wrong with that. But we Catholics would like one as well. I think we deserve it. Especially the real Silas. Did you know he's a stockbroker in New York with a wife and kids? And heres the kicker: the dude is Nigerian.
The LA Daily News ran a piece today rejoicing over the sizeable ticket sales of the Da Vinci Load. Exhibitor Relations Co. president Paul Dergarabedian said: "The critics certainly weren't kind to ("Da Vinci") but audiences heard so much about it, so how could they not see it?"
How could they not see it? What kind of silly question is that? They could not see it the same way I'm gonna not see it: by not going to see it. It's not that complicated. And frankly, I do wonder how it is that so much curiosity can be ginned up. The promoters of the film argue that protesters of the films are just promoting it by speaking out. But seriously, what are they supposed to do? Not speak up? Not defend themselves and their honor? If Opus Dei members were to keep their mouths shut it would be taken as a confirmation of the argument made by the film and book: that Opus Dei is a secretive and probably corrupt organization.
If the DaVinci Load of Crap is going to rake in hunreds of millions of dollars then so be it. It won't be the first two-and-a-half-hour baloney-fest to do so. I just hope the people who go to see it realize that what they're watching is in fact baloney.
But the fact of the matter is that whether they know that going in or not, they should be able to recognize the fact as soon as they walk out of the theatre and are confronted with numerous Catholics and members of Opus Dei and Catholic clergy etc, all of whom are saints. Of course, we would have to actually be saints in order for those who see the movie to recognize that. Perhaps that is the good that will come from this whole Catholic smear-fest. Perhaps now all we Catholics will have to be saints.
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