Teachable Moment or Sellout?

Earlier this week, Mark Pinsky of the Orlando Sentinel interviewed me for a piece he was writing on Grace Hill Media's work with Sony Pictures on marketing The Da Vinci Code film.

Here's the main article, which first focuses on what Campus Crusade for Christ and Josh McDowell are doing - producing study guides and other resources for those seeing the film, a project which, by their own admittance, is crossing over from using the moment to teach to encouraging people to see the film:

As a conservative evangelical leader, Josh McDowell is one of the last people you'd expect to urge young Christians to see The Da Vinci Code, the upcoming movie based on the phenomenally best-selling novel. After all, the book argues that Jesus sired a line of royalty before he died on the cross, because Mary Magdalene was pregnant with his child -- and that all of it was covered up by religious leaders through the centuries.

But McDowell, author of The Da Vinci Code -- A Quest for Truth, not only urges a trip to the theater, but also advises everybody to read the novel.

Then, he says, read his book.

"I don't attack [Da Vinci Code author] Dan Brown. I don't attack the book," says McDowell, who is on the staff of Orlando-based Campus Crusade for Christ. "Let's see where fact leaves off and imagination begins. It's a marvelous opportunity to be positive. The main purpose of my book is to reinforce their belief and placate their skepticism. If you look carefully, truth will always stand."

Grace Hill Media comes next, and Pinsky is just a little bit fuzzy about the situation, I"m guessing probably because no one from Grace Hill will be forthright about their arrangement with Sony:

What is not by the numbers is a quiet campaign by Sony, the studio producing the film, to court the one group most likely to be offended by the book's central theme: evangelical Protestants such as McDowell.

Through Grace Hill Media, a Hollywood firm headed by Jonathan Bock that markets studio films to Christian audiences, those who oppose the book's thesis are being courted, consulted, cajoled and encouraged to voice their criticism in ways that could blunt their opposition. Bock has had extensive meetings and conversations with Campus Crusade officials, including Gauthier, and faculty members of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

"I don't comment on projects I'm working on," says Bock, who has promoted The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Holes and Walk the Line.

William Romanowski, author of Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture, says he is not surprised that Sony hired someone such as Bock to market the movie to the Christian community.

"Bock's efforts here are that he is trying to advance a kind of dialogue between the church and Hollywood generally and more specifically a dialogue about this film," says Romanowski, professor of communication arts at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. "They're moving away from the idea of film as evangelical or educational, toward film as a means of cultural discourse."

This is such a fine line. Not the Grace Hill stuff, which is, I think a fairly inarguable sell-out (since they are getting money from Sony for this), but what it means to see this phenomenon as a teachable moment - for to encourage people to see the film is not just to engage in the culture - it's to help the filmmakers profit from the lies they're telling.

My part, along with Bill Donohue, is in an accompanying article:

Amy Welborn; author of Decoding Da Vinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of the Da Vinci Code, a Catholic-based critique of Brown's book, is not offended by the actions of Josh McDowell and other evangelical Protestants to use the movie's release to defend and spread their faith.

"I'm not going to pour cynicism on this," she says. "To me it's just ironic. It's a hard place for all of us to be in. When do you cross the line from using it as a teachable moment to promoting the film?"

Welborn draws the line at preparing study guides that are posted on a Sony-sponsored Web site: "That implies that one needs to either read the book or see the movie."

"I'm wary of two things," says Welborn, a former high-school teacher. "That is, falling into promoting the product. I'm also a little wary of taking it too seriously. I do see The Da Vinci Code as damaging. It deceives people. At the same time, it's really silly."

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, takes a similar approach to the movie's release.

The "irony" which I was speaking of up there isn't exactly clear. The ironic point I was seeing was that evangelical Christians were going to be encouraging people to examine the real early history of early Christianity, a history which involves things like Church councils, the origins of Scripture, the relationship between Scripture and church, etc. Fifty years ago or so some evangelicals would have been echoing Brown's cant about Constantine, etc. We're long past that, of course, as evangelical scholars and publishing houses are today doing a great deal of work on patristics and early Christian origins that surpass what RC's are up to (because you know, there's this big chill that the Ratz put them under). But it's still ironic  - and good - that evangelicals are going to encourage folks to examine early Christian history. We're all the better for it!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Like a broken record, I repeat - it's  a fine line. I'm just not comfortable with the side of the line that brings profits to those who are spreading lies about early Christianity. And let me say this...hmmm...how shall I say it?

The film treatment of these issues is not weakened, one bit. If anything, because all of Brown's repetition and useless exposition is eliminated, the impact of the historical material is heightened. And it's all there - from Constantine to the marriage of JC and MM to the Church burning 5 million witches to Opus Dei as a "sect of radical fundamentalists" - it's all there. 

There needs to be a response - it needs to be strong, vigorous, positive, and consistent. But how do we do this without letting Sony, Imagine, Howard and Hanks laugh all the way to the bank? I'm just not sure.

Update: Just one further thought. The problem with the argument that you must read or see DVC in order to engage the culture on the points it raises is that - you don't.

See, the problematic elements in DVC aren't related to anything that must be seen in context. They're not embodied in the unique qualities of characters you read about or see onscreen that must be encountered that way to be understood. They're not discerned through evocative writing or the nuances of lighting, cinematography and screenwriting. They're not even really part of a "plot" that unravels.

No, the problematic points are simple assertions that characters make to each other in long, boring speeches. Mostly Teabing, the Ian McKellan scholar character. Teabing says, "You know the Bible wasn't dropped from heaven." Sophie says. "Oh!" And then Teabing goes on to "explain." Sophie shows Langdon the fleur-de-lis with the "P" and "S" and Langdon gets all goofy and awestruck and gives her a speech about the Priory of Sion, and Sophie says "Oh." (In the film, Langdon's discussion of the Priory of Sion is slightly more nuanced than it is in the book, a sop to the annoying naysayers.  [Such as religious fanatics like Laura Miller in right-wing 'zines like Salon. But whatever] He compares talking to it, for example, to describing a myth like Atlantis. Although at no point later is the "myth" exploded or questioned.)

My point is that everything that needs addressing in the film is contained in these speeches and expositions. The context - the purportedly "exciting" and "suspenseful" plot of either the book or the film - adds nothing and illuminates nothing.

That's why I always tell people that it's not necessary to read the book. They can discuss the problem perfectly well without doing so.

Also - this columnist declares that certain anti-Catholic fundamentalists shouldn't have too much problem with DVC, if they're true to their roots. (via Bill Cork)