"IT'S JUST FICTION"

I've put off commenting on The DaVinci Code (book or film) for a while. For various reasons that I won't go into here. But this last weekend, I decided to address one of the standard means for dismissing the critiques by Christians of the sullied premises of the story.

"It's just fiction," they say, looking at you with bemusement, while they are obviously thinking "You are obviously demented about it." Or "It's just a lot of hooey in a fun, fast thriller story. Come on. It's not that important."

Well, no. The audience is asked to invest in the main character, to care about the quest Langdon is on. And any investment like that is important. It enters into the emotional life of the audience.

Now, in movie lore, Hitchcock came up with the term "Maguffin" for an object the hero pursues, but whose importance is insignificant for the audience. A Maguffin is a Maguffin only when the object is important to the hero but irrelevant to the audience.The only reason we care about a Maguffin is because the characters care. The 1998 John Frankenheimer film Ronin is a perfect example of a Maguffin movie. Robert DeNiro & Jean Reno pursue a briefcase, and the audience never finds out what is in the case. It doesn't matter.

But there are other stories where the object of the quest is supposed to matter to the audience. I call them (oh, the irony in this case) Grail stories. This is where the object being pursued can become important to the audience in and of itself. If the object of the quest is such that, if it really existed, we would say it is a good thing, then it is not a Maguffin, it is a Grail.

The DaVinci Code says that the Holy Grail isn't a cup, it was Mary Magdelene. (Is that a spoiler for you? Tough toenails.) Langdon, the main character of the story, is on a quest to find the truth about the Holy Grail.

Now, the supporters of the book & film are dismissive, using the "It's just fiction" line to brush away concerns from Christians about the premise of the story. Translation: "It's just a Maguffin story. Why do you care?"

The problem is that it is NOT a Maguffin story. To stay engaged with this story, the audience does have to care about the object of the quest. If we don't care about the object of this quest, and agree that it is something worth having, we won't get on board for the story. And Dan Brown and the movie makers really, really want us on board.

But they're asking us to get on board for a Grail quest that has a "grail" which is counter to everything the "mythology" of the Holy Grail is intended to support.

No, don't talk to me about feminine cauldrons and the Earth goddess. The mythology of the Holy Grail is about Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, the sacrifice of the Holy One of God on our behalf so that (as the origins of the communion service from the Passover seder would indicate) the Angel of Death will pass over us.

"This is my blood shed for you. Drink of this."

Mary Magdelene and the so-called "sacred feminine" just don't measure up to that.

The truly appalling thing about DVC is that its supporters play the importance of the story's quest both ways. For those that buy into the "hooey" that Dan Brown is selling - that Christianity as we've known it for 2000 years is all a lot of bunk, that it was all made up by Emperor Constantine - for the Brownite True Believers, The DaVinci Code is a real Grail quest, and Langdon really is going after a valuable truth. And if you criticize that, well, they turn around and say that the story is really a Maguffin chase, so why are you upset?

I'm upset, as are many others, because there is a reality behind the stories of the Holy Grail. And that reality is that in a historical time and place, a person named Jesus - who was God Incarnate - lived and died to give us a more direct access to God the Father than had ever been imagined. It really happened.

I'm upset because one fo the symbols of that real event is being corrupted to an incredible degree. "The Grail isn't a cup - it's Mary Magdelene" (and thus, the communion service is an empty drama). No, it is not.

As a Grail story, there is some sophomoric aspects to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But I'm reminded of what happens to the villain when he picks up the showy chalice and drinks the water from it. It is, of course, not the True Grail. He supernaturally ages in seconds, right through to death and dissolution into dust. The Grail Knight dryly says, "He chose ... poorly."

There is a truth there.

It's not "just fiction."

Post Script: For those who insist that it's no big deal to be playing this fast and loose with the basic elements of Christianity, just imagine this: What would happen if some author had a best selling thriller exposing a long held secret, something protected by murder and mayhem by the Saudi Royal Family, and that secret was that Mohammad was actually a drunken madman, and that the Kaaba in Mecca was actually the hiding place of an immortal alien from another galaxy, kept chained up by the Royal Family since before the days of Mohammad. It's not true, of course. But if you thought the firestorm over the editorial cartoons in Europe was a big deal....

Just a thought.