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DaVinci Code Movie Uproar already ramping up
mood: 
pissed off
pissed offmusic: It's all in my head
Hollywood Report: Da Vinci Damage Control --- How Sony Hopes to Deflect Book's Religious Critics; Calling In the Scholars
By John Lippman
1,114 words
17 March 2006
The Wall Street Journal
W4
English
(Copyright (c) 2006, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
WITH TWO MONTHS to go before releasing its movie adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code," Sony Pictures is ramping up a public-relations campaign to try to avert backlash from religious groups.
The plot of the blockbuster novel -- for anyone not among the 40 million people who have bought copies -- revolves around an explosive theory about the origins of Christianity. The contention is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fathered a child with her, and that the Roman Catholic Church conspired to cover it all up. When the book first appeared in 2003, it angered some Christians, especially Catholics, who condemned it as heretical.
Opus Dei, a 77-year-old Catholic lay organization with 86,000 members, is depicted in the novel as complicit in the alleged coverup. An Opus Dei spokesman says the book "presents a false and inaccurate" image of Opus Dei and the church. Christianity Today magazine, co-founded by the Rev. Billy Graham, said the novel contains "misguided theories" and called it "pseudohistorical."
Okay. So precisely what part of the word fiction do these numbskills not understand? A couple of years ago the entire country was caught up in a fun and thrilling pseudohistorical movie called "National Treasure." I don't remember anyone being hung for treason over it. But the religious "right" (as in I'm right and the rest of the world is wrong) has come out with both barrels blasting at the heresy of the DaVinci Code. Geez, you'd think someone had cartooned Jesus/Moses/Mohammed with a toupee!
Listen up Christians, Jews, Moslems, Pagans, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists: You are not above ridicule. You don't want to be hated, don't act hatefully. You want respect, show some. And for whatever-deity-you-believe-in's sake, get your head out of your ass and lighten up. It's fiction.
(Where were you when L. Ron Hubbard became a saint and his SciFi became a religion?)
This is going to get nuts.
On the other hand, I don't have that much sympathy for DB. He made $72 million on the book which means my salary by comparison was an accounting error write-off. When you make it big you end up being a big target. So, I hope he's got his research ducks in a row, but how big a deal would it really be if he made $36 million instead of $72 million? I'd be so disappointed.:p