An analysis of press coverage: "DaVinci Code" vs. "The Passion of the Christ"

Via a link at Stones Cry Out, here is an interesting analysis of the press coverage surrounding The DaVinci Code, as compared to the press coverage of Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ two years ago.

While I'm usually not too quick to jump on the "Oh no! they're PERSECUTING Christians!!!" bandwagon, this story deserves to be read.  Here's an excerpt:

■ While Mel Gibson was attacked and even psychoanalyzed for his religious beliefs, DaVinci Code author Dan Brown and filmmakers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were never personally examined or challenged about their personal religious beliefs, their willingness to milk controversy, play fast and loose with facts, and offend Christians for personal gain. Whenever the networks decided to address fact and fiction in The DaVinci Code, they almost always found it was stuffed with falsehoods. But they never focused on the idea that Brown, Grazer, or Howard should be criticized for being too casual with the truth.

And thinking back to this fall, I can distinctly remember several hit pieces that coincided with the release of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe:

• Polly Toynbee's scathing rebuke of Christianity itself, published in The Guardian.


• Philip Pullman's objections to the "absence of Christian virtue" in the Narnia books, published by the BBC.

• The La Times trying its hardest to assert that C.S. Lewis never wanted Narnia brought to the big screen, and certainly not by Walt Disney.

• The New York Times digging into Lewis' past and insuating that he had a sexual relationship with a woman old enough to be his mother.

I suppose the biggest laugh that Mel Gibson and Walden Media had at the expense of the press was that their films went on to be huge hits, despite taking huge hits from major newspaper writers.

Comments

[Dan Trabue]

I'm curious how or why the DVC was offensive to Christians (and I'm a Christian)? It was fiction and, as important if not more, I just see nothing in either the book or movie that is offensive to me as a Christian.

[T. Laughlin]

Despite the "high level" of the "Da Vinci Code's" plot, people should just remember, in times of anger, that despite the aethereal book sales, it remains a glorified airport novel which simply uses the "biggest" plot in human history as a springboard for an admittedly well-paced, but meaningless thriller.