Recently while sitting at a friend’s house, watching television, we saw a preview for The Omen (the one coming out this year, not the thirty year old version). At the end of it, emblazoned across the screen, was the date, 06/06/06.
Now, that’s clever on the one hand, but disappointingly obvious for the most part. I’m interested in seeing the movie, really; but not on June sixth of this year, just out of principle.
What is that principle? Scared of the mark of the beast? No. Disappointed that Hollywood has blown up religious symbols lately, since the DaVinci Code book and all the way through the movies lately. I don’t mind horror movies, though I think they’re usually on par with the value of most comedies: for two hours of my life, I’d rather smoke a nice hand-rolled Nicaraguan cigar and talk with a friend or read a book. Sometimes horror movies can provide excellent fodder for theological discussion. But mostly, they are fodder for useless discussions. I can’t tell you the number of people who have tried to say, for instance, that Constantine decided what to put in the Bible and, after all, how do we know that the Gospel of Judas (which, mark well, is no gospel at all) isn’t really God’s message to us?
Is anyone else baffled by this recent surge of religious nonsense coming out of Hollywood in light of Dan Brown’s pop novel?
June 7th, 2006 at 07:45:08
I wouldn’t say I’m baffled. Quite the contrary: I completely understand it. Hollywood has a need to get as many “butts in the seats” as they can to have any hope of making money. They’ve known for quite some time that controvercial (and especially religiously controvercial) movies get attention and, accordingly, get viewers. Stigmata, I think, was the first dip into that market. While that might not have done as well as the producers would have liked, the mammoth success of Passion certainly turned them on to the market of religious films. Narnia, DaVinci, and the Omen are all examples of this pattern. That’s my take.