Wednesday, May 24, 2006

da vinci code

Went to see it last night. It was pretty insufferably tedious. I fell asleep toward the end. They tried to ameliorate the offensiveness of it by having the Tom Hanks character talk about how its okay to pray to Jesus even though he was just a man.

Which brings up my main question about the Da Vinci Code: if Jesus was just a man, albeit a special one, then what's so special about his bloodline? How are his female descendents ("Sophia" in the book / movie) supposed to be the repository of the divine feminine?

Yet another weird anomaly of the book / movie is the central claim that the Church suppressed devotion to Mary Magdalene. But of course the Church did not. In fact, outside the Catholic Church, there was no devotion to Mary Magdalene at all. And within the Church there was plenty.

Lastly, there was a moment in the movie (which I don't remember in the book) where the Ian McKellen character says something about how the Church wants to supress the truth that sex is really the vehicle through which humans come to God. Apart from being a baseless, appetitive fantasy, this kind of suggestion belies the liberal accusation that conservatives are obsessed with sex. One hears this all the time from liberals (at least I have): "you conservatives are just obsessed with sex! Its all you can think about!" The truth is, I can't tell you how many "Sex Weeks" and condom give-aways, and what not I've witnessed being organized by the same people who accuse me and my party of being obsessed with sex.

Oh, well. The book was a lot better than the movie. Though both will just serve to confuse people and further erode an already eroded confidence in the Church's teachings in the West.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

WB,

Agreed! The movie sucked - which is why I refuse to see it. But consider what a flop the following storylines would have been:

The DaVinci Load: the story of how Leonardo actually invented the water closet;

Indianna Jones and the DaVinci Brogues: Harrison Ford's last adventure in search of the Lord's shoes (they turn out to be clogs - the shoes of a carpenter);

The MonaLisa-Marie Presley: how the Jehovah's Witnesses are trying to suppress the story that Michael Jackson's offspring are really a new race of entirely plastic people;

Deuce Michelangelo Renaissance Gigolo: he got lonely up there painting all the time.... who do you think modelled for the nude frescos?(sorry);

Your turn...

BFC

Hilary Jane Margaret White said...

How are his female descendents ("Sophia" in the book / movie) supposed to be the repository of the divine feminine?

Bit of an insult isn't it, to feminist sensibilities to have the "divine" (whatever they mean by that) come not from Mary Magdalene but from this Yeshua chap, who, if their story is to be accepted, is just some schmoe. What is the "divine feminine" doing coming from a guy? Shouldn't it be all female?

too bad their theologies don't hold up under the slightest scrutiny even by following their own rules.

Anonymous said...

I don't really think Dan Brown cares if his theologies hold up to anything as long as the $$$$ keeps rolling in. He's now rich and famous/infamous.