Boycotts and The Golden Compass
My inbox this week has been flooded with emails with something about The Golden Compass in the subject line. From questions about my opinion of the book, to email forwards imploring me as a good Christian to boycott the movie, to Facebook groups asking me to boycott those who are boycotting the movie the buzz is making itself known. It appears that this year after a few attempts at actually supporting movies (The Passion, The Nativity Story, Evan Almighty) conservative Christians are lending their free advertising voice to spreading the (negative) word about the Hollywood interpretation of Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass.
The reason’s for the boycott are grounded in real anti-Christian bias (as opposed to the perceived anti-Christian stance of Harry Potter). Pullman has admitted his very anti-Christian stance and his desire to create the anti-C.S. Lewis/Narnia series. I recall an interview with him back in 2000 where he jokingly thanked the Christians for getting up in arms about J.K. Rowling’s books and leaving his far more dangerous ones alone. And in all truth, this series (His Dark Materials) goes out of its way to challenge the basic Christian assumptions about God, faith, sin, and death.
I was a fan of Phillip Pullman’s work’s growing up. I counted his Sally Lockhart series (a Victorian mystery series) as one of my favorites when I was a kid. So when I rediscovered the joys of reading young adult fantasy novels when I was in grad school (don’t ask), The Golden Compass and it’s sequel The Subtle Knife were pleasurable finds. The stories were engaging and the characters endearing, in all they were good reads. My friends and I (unknowing of Pullman’s worldview) debated where the series was heading. I thought that it could either be making a fantastic point about corruption and greed in the church and the need for reform or it could be heading to an attempt to discredit and destroy the church. So I eagerly awaited the release of The Amber Spyglass in the fall of 2000 and when I received my copy I stayed up all night reading it. At around 3am I finished the book and threw it across the room in disgust – it was that bad. Besides trading in the brilliant descriptive writing of the first two books for a pathetic sermonizing voice in the third, Pullman pulled a basic bait and switch. He captured readers with an engaging story, and then took that story to unbelievable places as a venue for him to spout off about his about God, faith, and the church. The basic premise was too far-fetched to even begin to be a satisfying conclusion to the series – we have to have lots of sin in our lives so that we have interesting stories to tell the Harpies in the afterlife so that they will let our souls dissolve into nothingness instead of being stuck in a boring heaven which means that two children need to have sex to reintroduce sin into the world. Um, sure, whatever. It wasn’t so much that I disagreed with Pullman as that I think he failed as a storyteller. That was the biggest disappointment.
So we now have the upcoming release of The Golden Compass movie, the first offering in an ultimately dismal series. To me, as much as I loved The Golden Compass, it will forever be tainted by The Amber Spyglass. But I still want to see the movie. And then there are the Christians are calling for a boycott of the movie on the grounds of philosophical and theological differences with the author. Those differences are real, but I still don’t support the boycott. I understand situations where you protect your children from porn or violence in movies, but I really don’t get the impulse to keep your children ignorant and stupid by preventing their exposure to differing worldviews. People in this world hold differing opinions and believe in various faiths, to pretend that they don’t exist dehumanizes those who are different than you are. While my daughter is way too young to be seeing any movies these days (anyone want to babysit so I can go see this? 
), I would much rather thoughtfully help her engage with other belief systems (including critiques of my own beliefs) than lie to her about their existence. In fact I look forward to the opportunity and can’t fathom why parents would insist on avoiding teachable moments in their child’s life.
So in spite of my disappointment with the entirety of Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, I am also not a fan of boycotting movies because it might disagree with my faith or cause me to actually think. So there is my answer to the boycott emails and the Facebook groups.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
I’ve been hoping that you would address this. I appreciate your input – particularly because I was completely unfamiliar with the books until just about a week ago when I received a “boycott the movie” email.
I wonder, though, whether keeping a child from seeing a movie because it is creates a fantasy world based on a philosophy so profoundly contrary to what a parent would hope (and pray) that their child would one day resonate with is the same as keeping a child ignorant and stupid.
For example, I don’t think I want to expose my daughter to children’s movies in which women are objectified (in fact, I remember my mom walking out of a movie with me once when I was young for this reason). True, there are groups of people for whom the objectification of women is the norm. Nora will find this out soon enough. Movies can be pretty convincing to kids – maybe its my job as “mom” to censor what she sees, particularly while she is very young. In the grand scheme of things, the objectification of women example is small potatoes compared to the existence (and goodness) of God.
BTW – I read your blog almost every day. You have such great thoughts. I’m sure it must take a considerable chunk of your time to maintain this and the other blogs that you are a part of. We appreciate your thoughts and your work.
LOL … the only movie I’ve ever banned my kids from seeing was the Disney version of Pocohontas. That only because they turned a lovely (but squat) Native American into a Barbie doll. I insisted that my daughter know the “real” story before she watched the bastardization of it. When she asked me why, I told her … because it’s important that she know about real women and Pocahontas was real. After that she was able to watch the movie and laugh.
It’s funny, but one of the very few good things about Focus on the Family is their movie reviews, called . Most (not all, most) of the time they are pretty balanced. They give a good critique of the movie from a spiritual perspective along with good tips about how to talk to your kids about a movie … even the really controversial movies. Now, they also give exhaustive counts of all the swear words and other sort of (to me) silly things. But I’ve found their reviews very helpful when it comes to talking to my kids about sticky parts of movies. fwiw …
Okay … I really screwed that link up. Here it is again.
The review site:
Sorry about that … I should be more careful!
Congratulations on your new site, Julie!
I had a great discussion with my 12 year old son about this series…he read the first and last… and he basically said: “there were some interesting things about them, but this guy’s ideas about God and church are really messed up.”
I agree that these all provide wonderful opportunities to talk with out kids about what is good and what is “messed up.” I always want my sons talking to me about this stuff…they’re going to talk with their friends in school about it!
Blessings…
Anne – thanks for reading! and I’m upset that I still haven’t met Nora yet. I think there is a difference between avoiding certain things and actively boycotting them. Sure there are movies and dolls that I will not encourage or show and will openly share my opinions about if and when Emma becomes interested in them. But when there is a very popular movie like this that every other kid will be talking about and that is all over the TV/papers, to actively tell your kids “this movie is evil and you are not allowed to see it because it portrays ideas that are different than mine” creates more problems than it solves. Instead of just not being interested in engaging with a topic, one is creating a culture of fear around it. The message gets sent that if other people are not Christians they are not worth engaging with or respecting as people too. So in cases like these I would much rather talk with my child about the differences – acknowledging that other belief systems exist, that real people worthy of love and respect hold to them, and help my child understand how what I (she?) believes is different. Laying those foundations of respect when children are young could perhaps stop some of the hate crimes they might perform when older and forced to encounter “the other” who is all those things they were taught to hate by their parents.
I hate these forwarded e-mails. I’m just rebellious enough to do the opposite of what they are telling me I should do. I find that these types of things give me a good oppertunity to have great dialog with my kids.
Good stuff. Thanks for writing, Julie.
Wheaton’s Alan Jacobs wrote a review of the final installation of Pullman’s trilogy. I don’t think it’s available online, but this excerpt from a blog post mentions it:
In an article in The Weekly Standard entitled The Devil’s Party Alan Jacobs discusses Pullman and his attempt to turn the Creation story on its head. Since it is no longer online, I wanted to give you an overview of what I consider Jacobs devastating critique.
Jacobs, a professor of English at Wheaton College, understands that we are dealing with a first rate writer in Pullman. He describes the trilogy as having marked Pullman as “a writer whose talent puts him in the league of Tolkien, LeGuin, and Alexander.” Jacobs also asserts that the ability to create “what Tolkien called ’secondary worlds’ – complex environments sufficiently like our own to be recognizable but sufficiently different to generate excitement and wonder” is consequential because books of this nature “offer not just a story but a world, and the lesson they teach is not just a moral but a worldview.”
Jacobs believes however, as does Moloney (see previous post), that Pullman’s worldview hampers his storytelling:
“Whichever party readers support in the ancient contest between God and Satan, they will be disappointed to see how often, in the Amber Spyglass, the tale’s momentum is interrupted by polemic. Pullman’s anti-theistic scolding consorts poorly with his prodigious skills as a storyteller. In imagination and narrative drive, he has few peers among current novelists. for such gifts to be thrust into the service of reductive and contemptuous ideology is very nearly a tragedy . . . Pullman the storyteller has also been cheated – by Pullman the village atheist.”
Jacobs takes his critique beyond mere storytelling, however. For Jacobs, Pullman’s talent masks a fundamental dishonesty. Pullman’s worlds are just as manichean as the fundamentalists he despises, the roles are just reversed:
“One sees a number of unequivocally evil people in these books, and one sees a number of Christians, and these are always – always – the same people.”
As I mentioned in the previous post, in the end Pullman’s worldview hijacks his entire narrative. It is not just his anti-religious views either, but his politics as well. Jacobs notes that Pullman’s entire conclusion is tied up in a romantic view of humanity that refuses to see the reality of the last 100 years; refuses to admit the tragic, if unintended, consequences of so many idealistic crusades:
“This sentimental refusal of historical understanding leads directly to the Manicheanism of Pullman’s moral vision: closed versus open minds, tyrants versus liberators, the vicious Church versus its righteous opponents.”
Jacobs again:
“The luminously gifted Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is a work so imaginatively potent that it has already inspired the kind of loyalty given to the secondary worlds of Tolkien and other fantasists. But a story so thoroughly sentimental and manipulative doesn’t deserve that loyalty. Pullman’s readers shouldn’t overlook the deception, conscious or unconcious, that lurks at the heart of his beautiful, misbegotten endeavor: “The rhetorcian would deceive others,” as Yeats once put it, “the sentimentalist himself.”
Thanks for posting that Karl. The rhetoric ultimately destroys the story, so much so I think that it is near impossible to be “captured” by the series as a whole.
Wow,
Thanks for the piece and all the comments. I know nothing of this writer. But I’m going to do some reading. Sounds like something I need to know about.
regarding boycotts. In my humble opinion, they are a move of weakness. Generally put on by weak people and generally have terrible results. The best PR this movie could EVER get is if some Christian group boycotts it.
See now I’m tempted to read him, but don’t want to waste my precious reading time on something that gets spoiled by such a childish agenda.
More on the film from an October BBC report. Interesting that atheists are as up in arms about the watering-down of Pullman’s ideology as Narnia fans were a few years ago after rumors that Hollywood was going to do the same to Lewis’s works:
One of the key religious themes of Philip Pullman’s award-winning series of children’s novels, His Dark Materials, has been watered down to appeal to a wider audience in the new Hollywood film version of the first book. The original story’s rejection of organised religion, and in particular of the historic abuse of power in the Catholic Church, has been altered to avoid offending followers of the faith in the UK and in America.
The film, which stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, is called The Golden Compass after the American title of Pullman’s novel Northern Lights and has followed his magical narrative very closely in most respects. The characterisation of the sinister organisation known as the Magisterium has, however, been changed, so that the film will now appear to be a more general attack on dogmatic authorities of every kind.
Northern Lights, the book which first introduced readers to Pullman’s 12-year-old heroine, Lyra, is as dear to its many fans as JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter saga, so tampering with the philosophical content is not likely to be welcomed when the film is released before Christmas.
While Pullman himself has said he believes ‘the outline of the story is faithful to what I wrote, given my knowledge of what they have done’, the National Secular Society – of which the author is an honorary associate – has now spoken out against the changes.
‘It was clear right from the start that the makers of this film intended to take out the anti-religious elements of Pullman’s book,’ said Terry Sanderson, president of the society. ‘In doing that they are taking the heart out of it, losing the point of it, castrating it. It seems that religion has now completely conquered America’s cultural life and it is much the poorer for it. What a shame that we have to endure such censorship here too.’
Thanks for the heads up. I just started reading the trilogy. I’m about 2/3 of the way through The Subtle Knife. But my husband had already warned me that Pullman let his anti-Christian bias ruin the story. But I didn’t know how badly it was going to ruin the story. I’ll still read the third book, but it really disappoints me that his great storytelling is going to be so marred by his anti-religious and political views.
I’m sorry, Julie. People who have read the book and are familiar with the content are NOT allowed to comment on the boycott. Please be more careful next time.
Oh sorry Ed, I guess I didn’t get that memo. My bad.
Julie, good info and good thoughts. I agree, avoiding other worldviews is 1)impossible, and 2)counterproductive. Rather than a knee-jerk reaction, followers of Christ might want to try talking to other people about their viewpoints. Might actually lead to some enlightening conversation. — Chuck
Well said. A few years ago there was a musical in thu UK based on The Jerry Springer show and the evangelicals were up in arms about that as well. The problem about attacking the people who attack our faith is that we are operating at their level, and become easy targets for counter-attack. That’s not exactly effective witness.
Thanks for the review, heads-up, etc.
pax,
meb
Julie -
Thanks for dropping by my site and commenting on my similar posting, although not as eloquent nor concise as yours. Great thoughts!
And Ed – your comment was hilarious! Thanks for the evening laugh.
boycotts seem like the most narcissistic waste of time ever. no one ever changes their mind about seeing a movie b/c someone else is boycotting it. in fact, as real live preacher pointed out, this usually just creates more interest than is merited.
rather, boycotts seem to be more about feeling self-congratulatory than actually making a difference.
if christians would spend half as much time and energy creating a better alternative as we do claiming that the sky is falling b/c someone made a yucky movie, we’d be in a better position to actually have a conversation about how one’s worldview impacts their artistic expression.
I think I’m with RLP on this one. For Christians to try to convince people not to see the movie–rather than engaging with it, disagreeing with it, and pointing out how it diverges both from authentic faith and from our understanding of it–comes from fear and weakness. Let people see it, and enjoy it, even if they want. Then educate them so that they understand what we believe and why. I read that Pullman, son of an Anglican priest, wanted to show all the evil done in the name of the church. It might be a good thing for us to own that rather than trying to kill the messenger.
Greg
Thanks Julie. Whilst we don’t have to agree with our critics i think we should at least listen to them, afterall our stubboness to be right and not listen will only inspire future generations of authors to point out our flaws in less than flattering ways…
I, too, read the trilogy. I enjoyed the first book…but it went downhill from there.
I will see the movie, may even enjoy it as the fantasy it is….
I hate the emails sent….just like with Harry Potter. They are so manipulative…and mostly, if you tried following the links on them, they were false.
It makes me hesitant to identify myself as a christian some days…
CT has a feature piece this month on Pullman’s work:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/december/12.36.html
The author uvazhuha for literacy)))