A few days ago, I saw this bulletin posted by one of my “friends” on myspace. It seemed to be one of the few examples of a bulletin that wasn’t a pointless and TMI survey, or promotion for a band, so I actually opened it. It turned out to be some lame shrill squawking about the movie The Golden Compass, and I would have just rolled my eyes and moved on, but part of it really kind of me.
So this was it:
*It’s up to you what you want your kids to watch, but this movie is a pretty sneaky way of going about it. Personally I think kids are really impressionable at about ages 14 and under–so for me, I wouldn’t have my mind changed by a movie, but when you’re younger, it’s different. I looked up a synopsis of the books and it’s pretty blunt–mentioning a rite of passage similar to female circumcision, and even placing the war in the last book in the “Kingdom of Heaven”. Doesn’t sound so innocent to me.
-Kelsey
From snopes.com:
"There will be a new children’s movie out in December called THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It is written by Phillip Pullman, a proud athiest who belongs to secular humanist societies. The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please. Nicole Kidman stars in the movie so it will probably be advertised a lot. This is just a friendly warning that you sure won’t hear on the regular TV.
The movie is based on the least offensive of the three books. And they have dumbed down the worst elements in the movie because they don’t want to make Christians angry and they want to make money. Our concern is this, unsuspecting Christian parents may want to take their kid to the movie, it opens up, the parents say this wasn’t troubling, then we’ll buy the books. So the movie is the bait for the books which are profoundly anti-Catholic and at the same time selling atheism.
Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in a 2003 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that “My books are about killing God”.
What I thought was important to communicate is what part of the agenda is for making this picture. This movie is a watered down version of the first book, which is the least offensive of the three books. The second book of the trilogy is THE SUBTLE KNIFE and the third book is THE AMBER SPYGLASS. Each book gets worse and worse regarding Pullman’s hatred of God. In the trilogy, a young girl becomes enmeshed in an epic struggle against a nefarious Church known as the Magisterium. Another character, an ex-nun, describes describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake.” As I understand it, in the last book, a boy and girl are depicted representing Adam and Eve and they kill God, who at times is called YAHWEH (which is definitely not Allah). Since the movie would seem mild if you viewed it, that’s been done on purpose.
If you decide that you do not want to support something like this, I suggest that you boycott the movie and the books.If you decide that you do not want to support something like this, I suggest that you boycott the movie and the books."
Let me know what you think, guys. :] *
Here is the actual Snopes article
Notice that the only material actually written by snopes was the Pullman quotation about killing god. I think she is falsely implying that all the rest of it was written by snopes, giving it more credibility.
But then, the article is listed as “true”, and if she didn’t write “from Snopes.com”, what should she have written instead? What do you guys think?