Memetic Trojan Horse? Da Vinci Code
Tim Boucher has a post about how a Chinese company is offering a DNA test (for the equivalent of $125) that will prove whether or not you are related to Confucius. He then speculates on the implications of the Sangreal (royal bloodline) idea, though he doesn't take it completely to its logical conclusion. So I will.
The Da Vinci Code (both the book and the movie) got a lot of free publicity when the Catholic Church came out against it. I avoided the book, since I already knew about the Holy Blood Holy Grail thing. I did watch the movie, which seemed to me simply a repackaging of the Merovingian-as-descendant-of-Christ narrative promoted by the original book by Baigent in a somewhat irritating thriller format.
Conventional wisdom says that the Catholic Church is merely trying to protect its turf. In particular, the One Church would rather not call attention to the First Council of Nicaea, which consolidated the Christian faith from what had previously been a veritable mob of competing mythologies into a central dogma that was subsequently enforced in a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Now, the Catholic Church may be evil. But it's not stupid. It would seem to me that the pointy-headed wonks (pun intended) at the top of the Catholic food chain would know that controversy is one the best ways to advertise a new product. (Got New Coke?) This is an old and well-tested formula.
What if instead of trying to stifle the DaVinci Code, they were trying instead to promote it?
Now, why would they want to do such a thing?
One of the insidious ideas I found lurking in the subtext of the Da Vinci Code is the idea of holy bloodlines: the Sangreal, or Royal Blood. If the descendants of Christ are still wandering about in the PostModern age, surely one of them will soon announce His or Her esteemed heritage and offer modern-day salvation? Such a worthy heir would surely be a leader around whom we could rally!
This is a disturbing reemergence of the Divine Right of Kings meme, a seed of proto-fascism.
I don't mean to be paranoid. But we should all be on the lookout for disturbing subtext hidden within ideas that seem, on the surface, to be subversive.
The Da Vinci Code (both the book and the movie) got a lot of free publicity when the Catholic Church came out against it. I avoided the book, since I already knew about the Holy Blood Holy Grail thing. I did watch the movie, which seemed to me simply a repackaging of the Merovingian-as-descendant-of-Christ narrative promoted by the original book by Baigent in a somewhat irritating thriller format.
Conventional wisdom says that the Catholic Church is merely trying to protect its turf. In particular, the One Church would rather not call attention to the First Council of Nicaea, which consolidated the Christian faith from what had previously been a veritable mob of competing mythologies into a central dogma that was subsequently enforced in a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Now, the Catholic Church may be evil. But it's not stupid. It would seem to me that the pointy-headed wonks (pun intended) at the top of the Catholic food chain would know that controversy is one the best ways to advertise a new product. (Got New Coke?) This is an old and well-tested formula.
What if instead of trying to stifle the DaVinci Code, they were trying instead to promote it?
Now, why would they want to do such a thing?
One of the insidious ideas I found lurking in the subtext of the Da Vinci Code is the idea of holy bloodlines: the Sangreal, or Royal Blood. If the descendants of Christ are still wandering about in the PostModern age, surely one of them will soon announce His or Her esteemed heritage and offer modern-day salvation? Such a worthy heir would surely be a leader around whom we could rally!
This is a disturbing reemergence of the Divine Right of Kings meme, a seed of proto-fascism.
I don't mean to be paranoid. But we should all be on the lookout for disturbing subtext hidden within ideas that seem, on the surface, to be subversive.
Labels: culture
posted by slomo at 4:52 PM
5 Comments:
absolutely. i totally agree that there is MUCH more going on with this movie than just a simple struggle over story-telling. if you overlay this with people like nicholas de vere who blatantly say that the "grail" bloodline is now and always was intended to rule over humanity you will definitely start getting a serious sinking feeling
it`s the hegelian dialectic again. the church feeds on controversy. there are speakers travelling around debunking the davinci code for open-mouthed churchgoers who haven`t been this entertained on a church pew in years
This book was the most annoying book I've read in a long time. For one of many reasons, it ignores the fact that Jesus was a practicing Jew. (So how does the author get away with blidly linking fertility rites to Judaism)? There were so many illogical and just plain stupid things in this book that I'm surprised that people can't wait to see more of this drivel. Honestly, I thought "Preditor Versus Alien" was more intelligent.
Honestly, I thought "Preditor Versus Alien" was more intelligent.
Heh heh heh!!!
I tried reading The Da Vinci Code. It's so badly written, I didn't make it past the first two chapters. Even as a garden variety "suspense" novel, read "just for light entertainment," the writing is just too darn poor. Sometimes I turn to books like this for fun reading as the "historical detective" (?) genre is sometimes interesting, but I hate fiction writers like Dan Brown in the Da VaVinci Code that overuse exclamation points because they can't impress with their sentence structure, unlike Alan Furst. I think that topic and theme aside, the poor quality of the writing is a sad comment on the public at large that made that book a bestseller.
But mostly "The Code" is such a regurgitation of material alreay widely available and covered ad infinitum by other writers, and better ones at that. "Holy Blood and Holy Grail" is the now notorious example, but also a little known book, Ean Begg's "The Cult of the Black Virgin," which provides many little known facts on ancient traditions becoming syncretic with Christianity, but that writer tries too hard to artificially squeeze all the diverse esoteric and pagan traditions into one overarching, seamless tradition with all the connected dots too neatly connected.
Of course, Umberto Eco trod this territory in a far more thoughtful way, in a highly readable manner in "Foucault's Pendulum." The idea in Brown's book that the Priory, or maybe you prefer the Templars or Masons, are more than just obsure, fringe crank groups rather than powerful, global conspirators was just a little too much to accept. Opus Dei? Yes, they could be a "power node," but in ways contributors to this thread and SLOMO illuminate.
Finally, I was a little surprised that "Jesus was just a guy that had sex and had a baby" is the advertised theme of the film, when in fact what I will term "the sacred female nature of Mary Magdalene" seemed to be what they were reallly trying to get at... McKellen's part, the "sheming atheist," determined to bring down the divinity of both Jesus and Mary Magdelene, portrayed as the crazy lunatic with an agenda, dragged away ranting in a police car at the end; his role seemed to illustrate Dan Brown's fixaton of "good Mary Magdelene" more than anything else for me.
Slomo's sister, who agrees with Slomo and me that "Predator Versus Alien" was more a intelligent (and I'll say, more entertaining film), writes: "For one of many reasons, it ignores the fact that Jesus was a practicing Jew. (So how does the author get away with blidly linking fertility rites to Judaism)?"
Actually, the historical record on Jesus is pretty sparse. Other than the Bible, the only independent confirmation that Jesus even existed is in Roman records, which only state that "such and such a man from this place was crucified," and crucifiction in those days was not an uncommon thing. The Greco-Roman influence on Christianity before the church became formalized came from Alexandria and other stirring urban centers o culture in turmoil, where academic jews were not very orthodox and Jewish tradition in Judea was still reeling from the destruction of the Temple by the Roman general Pompei. That and the gentiles bringing their own tradtions into the mix as the movement spread and became more diverse over a continuosly volatile period of two hundred years after Jesus, the man, not the religion, was long gone. May not make sense, but Dan Brown's little history lessons as delivered by Ian McKellan are basically Readers Digest accurate, though there is much to say for "the devil is the details" (forgive the pun). And religion making sense? I think logic is not usually a common denominator, and certainly contemporary Roman commentators, the ones promoting the dying religion of "civic virtue," were concerned about the rise of crazy superstitions at the time, not making much sense...
On the roots of the consolidation of orthodox church dogma after that, Elaine Pagels "The Gnostic Gospels" is a pretty good authority on that, or you could just rent Kevin Smith's movie "Dogma" for fun, where Kevin Smith includes a "thanks" to Pagels in the end credits, along with many others. (I love Alan Rickman)
Again, "The Da Vinci Code" to me is such a bad treatment of a well trodden topic, I suggest anyone who hasn't seen it just skip the whole thing and go rent Sir Ian McKellen's excellent production of "Richarch III," set in the interwar period (WWI-WWII). Now that is an excellent film. I love that Sir Ian does his best to play his roles in Hollywood as good as he can given what he has to work with, for the benefit of the audience, just so he can make money and do more worthwhie projects like Richard III and King Lear.
As for laying the ground work for monarchy, I think we may already have one. It shocked me to see the polls in 2000 where a majority of people saw nothing strange or wrong in the son of a president becoming president. Even Gore is a second generation politician.
OOf. Monarchy, sitting here in Tokyo just 40 minutes away from Emperor Akihito's palace, boy, what he must think... Monarchy is one subject thick in my books here, so I'll get off the post now...sorry for taking up so much space...
Post a Comment
<< Home