Ripples in the Pond:
Thinking about the Da Vinci Code
By Jason Keith Fernandes

Bemused is the condition one finds oneself in when reviewing the episodes that led to removal of the Da Vinci Code from Goa's box office. What was that again? Mockery; of our God? Of a God? I would have been embarrassed to take such a position since it would serve only to underline the fact that I have neither read the book, nor viewed the film, nor do I have a sense of the politics around the person of Christ. But perhaps these minor embarrassments are negligible for those who have weathered larger storms.

I read the Da Vinci Code sometime in 2003. I read it through the night and by day break I was done. The book was fascinating, as was the other book authored by Dan Brown Angels and Demons. If anything it is Angels and Demons that ought to be converted into a film, the imagery in the book is captivating and spectacular. There is this one moment in the book when the chamberlain to the Pope falls from a helicopter to emerge on the arms of Christ at the top of St. Peter's Basilica to the acclaim of a crowd waiting for the election of the Pope. I would trade my job as an academic for that of a film director only to be able to enact that whole scene!

There is something very problematic about the Da Vinci Code the film. Even though it tries to stick faithfully to the book, it is forced to select a central theme and play down the others. In doing so, it focuses, perhaps pragmatically, on the most salacious bit of the book, the unravelling of the meaning of the Holy Grail and the blood line of Christ.

For a film that has been mercilessly scourged at the pillar for being disrespectful, it ends with a resounding testament to the singularity of Christ. That what really matters about Christ was his message, the rest is only trimming. It is therefore not the person or the message of Christ itself that is problematic. The problem lies elsewhere, and I daresay that the problem lies in the depiction of the Catholic Church. Forced by time to focus on a single aspect of the book, the film has compromised on the nuanced depiction of the members of the Church. In doing so, the film, depicted the Catholic Church as evil institution, the bearer of ancient secrets, and the instrument of not so ancient men. Men who would kill and bribe to suppress ancient secrets.

Dan Brown is a citizen of the United States of America, a country where Catholic bashing is almost a national sport! Christ on the other hand, as we have all learned under the Presidency of the Most Reverend Geoge Bush, is serious business! It is little wonder then that the Catholic Church is painted as the bad guy in the film. But like the American fascination for royalty, while being avowedly republican, there is a certain American fascination for the ritual and pomp of the Catholic Church even as they profess to abhor its idolatry. This should explain the intense detail that Brown pays to the workings of the Catholic Church in both of his books. So much detail, that Catholics, especially the Goan catholic innocent about the global workings of their religion, would do well to read these books.

And speaking of innocence and Catholic hatred, this is nothing new. The Catholic Church has been hated almost since it associated itself with state and absolute power. The Eastern Orthodox Churches have had a tempestuous relationship with the Catholic Church as it bullied them into accepting above all its overlordship. The north European Protestants hated the Catholics, and subsequent to the republics that came up all over Europe, Catholic bashing came into its own. And yet, and every juncture, the Church has managed to weather the storm, coming out stronger. If anything, the controversy of the Da Vinci Code, will probably have focussed greater attention on the Vatican, allowing it to garner more converts to its fold, present dogma in greater detail to its all too often theologically illiterate fold. In the end perhaps, its not going to be only Dan Brown who is laughing all the way to the bank!

And if the Vatican and Brown are laughing all the way to the bank, what of our local Defender of the Faith, and the Most Christian Prince of Goa? What can we say about them except that they have probably done the Catholic community in Goa the greatest disservice ever. In rousing a rabble over a non-issue, the two of you have laid the foundations for communal and religious activism on the lines of the saffron and the Islamic right. After your little fiasco, we will have to work twice as hard to indicate to the Goan that there are other mechanisms to protest hate speech or a difference of opinion. We thank you for nothing!

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(Jason Keith Fernandes is an itinerant mendicant who currently teaches at the National Law School of India, Bangalore, from where he pines for Goa. The column above appeared in Gomantak Times dated 17th June 2006. Please send feedback to <jason_keith_fernandes at yahoo.co.in>
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