The Media Research Center has an interesting new report comparing the MSM’s coverage of The Da Vinci Code compared to its coverage of The Passion of the Christ.
THERE’S A NOTABLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO.
Is anyone shocked?
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
View all posts by Jimmy Akin
You mean “The Passion of the Christ” was not supported by Hollywood and the MSM? I don’t remember that at all… [/sarcasm]
Is anybody really surprised? I bet we won’t see that report on the nightly news. 😛
Even the “Smithsonian” magazine has lent itself to trashing the Catholic Church.
The new June 2006 issue has an article by James Carroll, “Who Was Mary Magdalene.” It’s a pseudo-historical review full of bovine fecal matter. Here are the two sentences concluding the article.
=But what most drove the anti-sexual sexualizing of Mary Magdalene was the male need to dominate women. In the Catholic Church, as elsewhere, that need is still being met.=
Those wacky journalists.
*But what most drove the anti-sexual sexualizing of Mary Magdalene was the male need to dominate women.*
One assumes then, that James Carroll and Dan Brown were somehow spared that need.
The report should be sent to every major network executive and anchor.
Well, of course, MaryC: James Carroll and Dan Brown are members of the Anointed, who, by definition, are superior to the vast unwashed.
I don’t know enough about Islam, but I know much respect is given to Jesus in Islam (at least on paper.) Has anybody considered or analyzed whether DVC insulted Islam as well in any way?
No bill912, it’s just that James Carroll and Dan Brown are REALLY ugly women disguised as men.
One major difference is Da Vinci is an inside Hollywood product produced by Sony. All the major news outlets are part of media conglormeates. ABC is owned by Disney, NBC is owned by GE which also owns Universal studios, and CBS was technically part of Viacom although the puppet master behind Viacom Summer Redstone split his empire into two with CBS and the now named Viacom owns Paramount stuidos, CNN is owned by Time Warner of Warner Bros studios, and FOX News is owned by News Corp which owns 20th Century FOX studios. In a type of informal agreement, the news outlets brown nose each other’s upcoming movies.
On the other hand, Mel Gibson is the barbarian trying to crash the gates. He self-financed and self-produced Passion. None of the major studios wanted to touch it and Mel had a hard time finding a distributor. The treatment of Passion vs. Da Vinci is partially reflecting Da Vinci is one of ours while Passion is an outsider.
Socially, it’s more acceptable to be a little bad than it is to be a little good.
For example, close family members last year were buying what I thought to be very tight jeans for my wife. I expressed the fact that I thought they were imprudent. I was immediately cast as a prudish freak with a problem. As an aside, I consider my family incredibly close knit and God centerd (you figure it out).
Had I said the jeans were too loose, I would have been smiled at and considered a normal and healthy–no problem.
I think the networks illustrate this rule of thumb very well. They are wearing they’re tight jeans quite well, and no one has a problem with it. But ohh, if someone comments that they are being a bit imprudent–woe to him the Jesus freak.
“ABC is owned by Disney, NBC is owned by GE which also owns Universal studios, and CBS was technically part of Viacom although the puppet master behind Viacom Summer Redstone split his empire into two with CBS and the now named Viacom owns Paramount stuidos, CNN is owned by Time Warner of Warner Bros studios, and FOX News is owned by News Corp which owns 20th Century FOX studios…”
Does this help to explain why the Dixie Chicks are being so aggressively promoted all of a sudden?
Before, they were just another popular singing group… now they are Darlings of the Left, victims of oppression, standing up to the mean-spirited red-staters, bravely giving their fans the finger.
I understand they are slated for a special concert appearance on Good Morning, America…
Sony is behind the latest Dixie Chicks CD. Once again one media conglomerate helping another although its a big help that the Dixie Chicks are one the A-list of Bush bashers. Steve Jobs has a very close relationship with Disney, Jobs is the largest individual shareholder in Disney after the merger with Pixar. Disney provided lots of content for iTunes both music and video. Good Morning America = ABC = Disney has a strong selfinterest to promote the Dixie Chick to get more downloads on iTunes.
Ever notice how big corperations are bad, Bush is evil for being “in bed” with the big corperations… but big media corperations are A OK?? Hmm.
One big media corporation is not A Ok and thats News Corp with its FOX News. The left is targeting News Corp but seems to give a pass to the other Big Media Corps.
DJ: Well, some Islamic groups (in India, in particular) have also protested The Da Vinci Code movie, and threatened violence. In some other areas a few Islamic authorities have called for the movie to be banned. I don’t get the sense that much of anything has actually happened though.
I’ve always thought Dan Brown’s face would look good on a punchbag. not very Christian of me, I know.
Did anyone notice how they said “Catholic and Christian”?
Anyone notice how the movie “The DaVinci Code” was based on a hugely successful book that had recently made a big splash in pop-culture, while “The Passion of the Christ” was not?
Oh, wait a minute — that would pretty much annihilate the whole argument supporting a stupid, posturing, self-righteous martyrdom complex wouldn’t it?
C’mon, let’s not be dumb. There’s lots of stuff out there that’s anti-christian. But the media’s enthusiasm for pulp fiction and its abject lack of even minimal critical thinking skills aren’t examples.
Actually, Bubbles, “The Passion of the Christ” was based on a VERY, VERY popular book – so much so that the very first printing presses were used to make it widely available. And it’s never gone out of print. 🙂
MissJean,
Great response. Thank you.
I don’t know enough about Islam, but I know much respect is given to Jesus in Islam (at least on paper.) Has anybody considered or analyzed whether DVC insulted Islam as well in any way?
Muslims would be very approving of one of the central claims of DVC: that Jesus is not actually divine. I also don’t imagine that Muslims would think a lying, corrupt Catholic Church to be an issue.
There is indeed something in the DVC that would be VERY insulting to Muslims. It is in chapter 28. In explaining how the Church’s “decision” to deify Christ ruined the masculine/feminine “balance” of the Pagan world, Brown writes:
“Women, once celebrated as an essential half of spiritual enlightenment, had been banished from the temples of the world. There were no female Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, nor Islamic clerics…. The days of the goddess were over. The pendulum had swung. Mother Earth had become a man’s world, and the gods of destruction and war were taking their toll.”
This segment attributes the cause of the “imbalance” in all religion to the Catholic Church and her dogma. It suggests that either A) Muslims were hapless suckers who adopted male-centric philosophy because they were unenlightened or B) Islam’s teachings were somehow subject to the “male-centric” views of the Council of Nicaea. Both of these would be insulting to Muslims.
Also in saying there were “no more” women Jewish rabbis, Catholic priests, or Islamic clerics, Brown is of course assuming there there ever were such things. Which there were not. A fact that the three faiths can readily testify to — not just to themselves but also for each other. This should make the movie patently offensive to anyone of any of the Abrahamic faiths.
But that is not all. Brown’s claim of the ENTIRE WORLD being thrown off balance because of this event reveals an even more far-fetched aspect: that all world religions were somehow A) blindly copy-catting the Church or B) subject to the council. This is because all religions of the world are “male-centric” if you use the same biased standard Brown, the Harvard Divinity School, etc use to stereotype Catholic teachings. (In fact, of all the world religions, Catholicism– with its prayer to Mary and female saints outnumbering male saints — STANDS OUT as the single greatest advocate of the Sacred Feminine!)
So this means, that Buddhists and Hindus also have reason to be offended by the story. But that still is not all.
PAGANS should also be offended. Though Brown gushes on and on about the sacred feminine and goddess-worship, in his version of the Council of Nicaea, peaceful Gnostic Christianity is RUINED because it is unduly influenced by Paganism. This means that Paganism, not “natural” Christianity, was the cause of the great “imbalance.”
Brown’s version of the Fall has Catholicism standing the role of the tree of Knowledge from which all other religions flow (which I can agree to inasmuch as Catholicism the truest of all faiths and a fulfillment of Jewish prophecy). Pagan Constantine is the serpent, and the bishops at the council are representatives of mankind who stand in for Adam and Eve. Their weakness causes the Imbalance which destroys (or is destroying) the world.
Not to mention the fact that Brown’s book is dripping with a condescending smarminess towards all faith. This attitude is epitomized in (hardback) quote on page 341 where Langdon says “every faith in the world is based on fabrication” and that all belief is really just misdirected metaphor.
Yes, there is much to offend.
Miss Jean,
“…a VERY, VERY popular book,”
uh, no. 40 million vs …what, over how many years? “Passion” was based loosely on a little, boutique book which did and does not, in any way, perform in sales like DVC.
Bubbles, you’re so funny! Until recently, I worked at a publishing company. We WISHED we had a book as popular as the Bible – multiple language editions, never going out of print, etc. I’ll admit that DVC was quite a marketing job, though. First, review copies of the book weren’t just sent to the literary critics – they often were directed to, say, the Home & Entertainment columnist of a mid-level newspaper. Check it out if you have time: the early good reviews were from people who normally didn’t write about books. The closest thing we’d seen previous to that was the way Bridge of Madison County was sent to university professors and others who normally didn’t read romance novels.
Despite the sales of DVC, you also have to understand the publishing world’s dirty little secret: If we’re trying to push a book, we send people out to buy the book in the first weeks in key markets.
What I think will be more interesting is if Dan Brown has any staying power. I don’t expect him ever to be like Stephen King, who churns out hits. In fact, a writer like Lisa Scottoline – moderate sales but hitting the best sellers lists fairly steadily – is apt to be better known in 20-25 years.
I can’t wait til Shirley Maclaine comes out with the fact that SHE is Mary Magdalene. Just think of THAT screenplay… Murder, conspiracy, intrigue, carmic history – aliens!
Make that, “and aliens!”
And that “Karmic history” (sorry Steve, Couldn’t resist!)
Sorry, Miss Jean, my mistake. I don’t recall anyone saying that “The Passion” was made from the bible; most articles I’ve read cite the book by Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich. THAT is the work to which I was referring.
If Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” was based on the Bible? Well, I can only say that I’ve been robbed both in the theater and on DVD as I’ve gotten quite a bit less than what I paid for; I mean the editing was HIDEOUS! Most of the book’s just GONE! It’s not even THERE!!!
No, DVC was a high-impact, pop-cultural phenom and the movie’s premier was covered as such. Comparing its coverage to “The Passion” is just nonsense.
Comparing coverage between DVC and The Passion by numbers alone is definately a bad idea. However, that is only one of the topics covered in the report. As the report says itself, there were many other movies that were that didn’t receive any coverage at all.
But a significant part of the report which cannot be ignored is the discussion over the type of coverage between DVC and The Passion.
From the report:
Nearly every one of the 66 network segments on The Passion touched on complaints about its
supposedly incendiary portrayal of Jews. But only 27 of the 98 Code segments focused on Christian
and Catholic protests.