Golden Compass Rhetoric

As the day has drawn nearer for the release of “The Golden Compass,” I watched the film’s ads for clues confirming or rejecting the warnings about it. I have found confirmation. One ad featured an authority figure in the film declaring something to be “heresy.” Combined with other observations already made about the movie and novels, I believe this to be an indication that the “evil” in this film will be religious authority and the “good” will be those opposing the religious oppression.

Dare I draw such a conclusion from so little evidence? Might I not be wrong? I might be; however, as “V for Vendetta” was being released, I noticed the apparent religious (specifically Christian) symbols displayed in the previews and commented to my son that my belief was that religion would be portrayed negatively in the movie. He disagreed with me until he saw the movie; afterwards, he admitted that I was right.

Being well aware of world history, I know that oppression has been the result of and/or perpetuated by religious authority throughout some periods. Christianity has not been exempt from being so abused. Subsequently, I am not entirely opposed to literature and entertainment that tell of the “little guys” struggling against the oppression of even so-called “Christian” religious authority.

What disturbs me about the way it is being done these days is the deceitful manner of those telling the tales. In every instance I have noticed lately, they ignore completely the historical context in which real people have struggled. They like to create and extend an exaggeration that all Christian moral and ethical viewpoints are oppressive. They likewise ignore the historical reality that those opposing oppression from Christian religious authorities did not seek to obliterate Christian faith. Instead, they sought to reform it and return it to its proper biblical application. This is a significant distinction between reality and the fiction being paraded as forms of reality.

A reason that Philip Pullman, author of the trilogy of children’s books that include “The Golden Compass,” can pull off this charade is that our culture no longer takes the time to investigate historical context anymore. As a result, those who seek to create moral equivalency between religions, religious oppression, and the truth of the Christian faith are able to do so with impunity because of their audience’s lack of knowledge and their deceitful tactics.

As the rhetoric concerning “The Golden Compass” has heated up, more light has been shed on the backgrounds of both the movie and the novels. The more the light shines, the more the deceitful tactics are illuminated. A number of reviewers have taken Pullman to task for obscuring his true intent in the first book or two so as to draw young readers into his atheistic reasoning without their awareness. Janie Cheaney writes, “This writer has read Pullman’s trilogy and has written about it for WORLD (Jan. 27, 2001). The first two installments throw some anti-religious darts, but the third crosses from literature to propaganda and leaves no doubt that the author had God in his sights all along.” (Janie B. Cheaney, “Broken Compass,” WORLD, December 8, 2007, p. 11)

Perhaps even more alarming are the film director’s stated purpose: “"Whereas The Golden Compass had to be introduced to the public carefully, the religious themes in the second and third books can't be minimized without destroying the spirit of these books. ... I will not be involved with any 'watering down' of books two and three, since what I have been working towards the whole time in the first film is to be able to deliver on the second and third films." —The Golden Compass director Chris Weitz, on his plans for preserving the strong anti-Christian messages found in the second and third installments of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, should they make it to the big screen. (PluggedIn online) Read more of his comments here.

I will conclude this post with a couple more links to reviews and comments about the movie. Not all are negative. It is my intent to leave the reader with information to make his/her own judgment. As for me, I am not going to support the errors of either the movie or the trilogy with my personal resources.

And, if anyone finds me in error concerning my observations and conclusions, I welcome any comments demonstrating my mistakes.

“Sympathy for the Devil” (a discussion of Pullman’s works & how he creates a rip-off of the C. S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series)
“Nicole Kidman's 'Compass' Points to Success” (a review of the movie by Roger Friedman of FOX news)