So I was pleased to see last week that the Washington Post's "Under God" blog picked up on my 2012 review at Christianity Today in a post on the film — and that they specifically called out a "Catholic" coda at the end of the review, in which I expressed my difficulty with the depiction (and non-depiction) of Catholic clergy at key points in the film:
A Tibetan monk is among the survivors, but "the only Christian clergy shown are the Catholic prelates who die at St. Peter's . . . If Emmerich is going to specifically show the Vatican leadership going down with St. Peter's, I want to see Catholic (and/or Orthodox) bishops among the survivors–somewhere on the planet."
Apparently Canada's CBC took note, and this morning I did a half-hour segment on the CBC's morning show "The Current." While I always walk away from a broadcast appearance thinking about all the things I wished I had said, I thought that it went pretty well, all things considered.
Now this morning I see that NYTimes.com's Arts Beat blog picked up on my New Moon review for Christianity Today in their round-up of reviews! This time, there's not a specific faith angle; the CT.com review is quoted alongside Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek and Slate.com's Dana Stevens — and they note, amusingly, that mine is probably "the only 'New Moon' review to invoke C. S. Lewis." Heh!
They also quote what is really the heart of my critique of the whole Twilight saga:
Twilight and New Moon are essentially uncritical celebrations of that overwrought, obsessive passion that is the hallmark of immaturity — passion that wholly subordinates all sense of one's own identity and elevates the beloved to summum bonum, or even the sole good; passion that leaps as readily to suicidal impulses and fantasies as to longing for union.
Pretty cool. (My editor at CT.com says he's going to have to keep me on all the two-star cheese-fests from now on…)
Incidentally, the WaPo blogger, David Waters, comments on my 2012 reservations, "Personally, I think that expecting to find any theological sensitivity from a Hollywood blockbuster is like expecting to find nutritional value in a jelly donut."
Maybe. First, though, how plausible is it that an enormous international project to save a remnant of thousands of people from all over the world, including many of the powerful and connected, would not include bishops? Certainly among those thousands would be some Catholics and Orthodox who would want to make provision for their faith life aprés le deluge, and would arrange for the inclusion of clergy.
Second, it's more the contrast of Catholic bishops explicitly being killed onscreen but not shown among the survivors that bothers me.
And third, I wouldn't say I had any "expectations" of "theological sensitivity" … I was merely commenting on something that's a problem for me watching the film. I might have similar reservations about a jelly donut.