Golden Compass

The movie Golden Compass, an adaptation from the book, “His Dark Material” by Philip Pullman, is talked all over the world. All because of the controversy that surrounds it. Some people want to ban the movie because it’s considered promoting hatred towards God and Catholic Church.

This is not the first time such controversies happen to a movie or book, especially the ones that are targeted for children. Harry Potter, Spongebob Squarepants, Teletubbies, Pokemon were all going through the same rejections. Many part of society accused them as the tool of evil, promoting homosexuality, or exploiting sexuality.
Golden Compass will be released on December 2007. The Catholic Church believes that the story is an attempt to contaminate children’s minds with atheist thoughts and teaching them to kill God. Moreover, the movie has been seen as an action against the Catholic Church.

I haven’t seen the movie. Neither have I read the book. It just frustrates me how we often overanalyze a work in a negative way. People keep trying to find signs, symbols, or anything that can prove their worries that a movie or book will give a bad influence to the society. Unfortunately, most of the times, we see what we want to see. Church sees the tool of Satan in almost every story and anti gays sees the homosexual’s symbols everywhere; most of the times where there is none.
It is appalling how we can see or look for negative signs in almost everything. I was shocked when I first read a discussion about Spongebob Squarepants. It said that Spongebob’s eyes and nose resemble male’s private therefore it’s dangerous for children. I stared at the Spongebob’s picture right next to the article and thought for hours how could they get to that conclusion. Even after I read that discussion, I still only see two eyes and a nose, let alone the children. There’s also a discussion about Spongebob’s sexuality. Many think that Spongebob is a homosexual because Spongebob is holding hand with its friend, Patrick the starfish, and they think it’s bad. For all I know, they are just trying to teach friendship to the children.

Furthermore, I understand that the author of The Dark Material, Philip Pullman, sends his message more explicitly. According to reviews, in that story God is pictured vulnerable and Catholic Church is pictured as the antagonist. I agree that many people might be offended by that. However, I still believe in freedom of expression. If we have to limit a freedom of expression because someone might be offended by that, we can never express anything. Any words we say, any thoughts we have are potentially offending others. Expressing one’s beliefs is different from promoting hatred. It’s the author’s right to express that he doesn’t believe in God or that he believes that God is vulnerable and mortal. What’s not right is if he expresses that we have to hate and discriminate others who believe in God.

In addition, banning this movie and book itself is discrimination. We see stories about Christianity and religious values all the time. As a democratic country, we respect every beliefs including atheism. When we are able to teach our Children about religions, why can’t they know that atheism as a belief exist? It is terrible how we see other’s value as a mistake. It’s terrible how some people think that having a homosexual character in a cartoon is dangerous when we have heterosexual characters all the time.

Finally, everything has potential harms, especially those that are targeted for children. Every work has free space for interpretation. Adults have their own filtration, but children don’t. That’s why parental advisory for children is important. Yes, we have to protect our children. Discriminate values that are not the same with ours is not protecting. It teaches them that when we’re different, we’re enemies. Our world can’t afford more of that.


-me
*published in 'The Current', December 2007