Movie Shocks Religious Right To
. The following column ran on August 7, 1988 in The Sunday Journal of Wheaton, Illinois. Copyright 1988 by The Copley Press. MOVIE SHOCKS RELIGIOUS RIGHT TO LIFE by Hiawatha Bray
. I recall reading somewhere that Universal Studios has carefully maintained the equipment director Carl Laemmle used to bring Frankenstein’s monster to life in the old film. I certainly believe it now.
. The studio that made Boris Karloff a star has now put Jerry Falwell on the comeback trail. After months of silence on the moral struggles of the day, Jerry has been moved by a movie to take a stand once more. At a Friday press conference, Falwell announced that he was backing the fundamentalist campaign against the film The Last Temptation of Christ.
. The new crusade offers a splendid opportunity for the armies of the good, so recently in retreat, to regroup and counterattack. . Times have been hard for the Religious Right these last couple of years. As the Reagan Revolution peters out, scarcely any of their legislative goals have been accomplished. Pornographers and abortionists still flourish, and the corridors of our public schools echo with Iron Maiden ballads, rather than prayers. . Matters went from bad to worse in the last 18 months, with a series of ludicrous scandals among TV evangelists that made conservative Christianity seem not merely wrong-headed but ridiculous. Oral Roberts, the Bakkers and Jimmy Swaggart weren’t particularly active in the political sphere, but their ill fame rubbed off. Even the faithful began to lose heart.
. What the movement needed was a great, galvanizing issue, a 220- volt controversy that would zap the Christian Right back to twitchy life. By making an unorthodox film about Jesus, Universal Studios has thrown the switch.
. Jerry Falwell didn’t respond to the treatment at first. He’s been tied up in a campaign to raise money for the defense of wellknown Christian patriot Oliver North. It was Rev. Don Wildmon, best known for catching Mighty Mouse snorting cocaine, who first detected the blasphemy. He began his crusade against the movie a month ago, and has rallied so many followers that Jerry felt compelled to run to the front of the parade.
. So just what is supposed to be so bad about The Last Temptation of Christ? The movie, based on a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, allegedly depicts Jesus as confused, indecisive and sex-crazed, rather like George Bush on steroids.
. Note the word “allegedly.” I don’t know if the film is at all like that, not having seen it. But its fiercest critics haven’t seen it either. What’s more, they’ve refused to go see it. True, Jerry Falwell has agreed to attend a screening on Wednesday. But he didn’t hold off on his denunciations. And Don Wildmon flatly refused to view it. Perhaps he feared he’d go to Hell for knowing what he was talking about.
. This willfully ignorant leader has successfully roused legions of trusting followers. Dr. Frankenstein’s creation didn’t have a mind of its own, either. Its transplanted brain, I recall, came from a jar marked LUNATIC.
. The monster in those movies would always have to contend with a gang of villagers dressed in lederhosen and armed with flaming torches. Even as they drove off the creature, you knew that these would-be heroes were attacking something they didn’t understand. . Enter People for the American Way, a group of liberals who seem pretty much dedicated to branding whatever the Religious Right does as somehow subversive of American values. The American Way folks have lost no time in denouncing the planned boycott of the film as the act of intolerant extremists.
. Which it certainly looks to be. It’s impossible to take the boycott’s leaders seriously, with their shameless ignorance of the movie they’re protesting. But People for the American Way has attacked their folly in a manner which suggests a folly of their own. . If Universal made a blatantly racist film, I and almost every other decent American would do our best to make the studio executives wish their mothers had had miscarriages. And I bet the American Way types wouldn’t say a mumbling word against us. Some would probably join in the fun.
. Well, believe it or not, some people feel just that strongly about their religious beliefs, and they have a perfect right to act on their principles. If they conclude that The Last Temptation of Christ is blasphemous, they’re entitled to boycott the living daylights out of the corporation that produced it. Contrary to the views of the torch-bearers of liberalism, such actions are as American as apple pie.
. The real menace here is the same poison that has tainted the Religious Right from its inception. On display once more is the ignorance, arrogance and power-lust that has led most Americans to despise the professional Bible-whackers. Nowhere to be seen is the humility and charity that are supposed to be such cherished virtues among believers.
. God doesn’t need the protection of Falwell and Wildmon. But the two preachers needed The Last Temptation of Christ they way Frankenstein longed for a thunderstorm. They’re charged up again, ready to lurch and bash their way across our cultural landscape. I suspect that for them, this is what really matters.