wtf?

[somedaybitch]

On [author Phillip] Pullman: I love the series, but giving it to a Hollywood director interested only in keeping the bible thumpers happy is a terrible misjudgement. The books are atheist. How can Americans stomach that!

there are directors in Hollywood that give a fuck about cater to bible thumpers? for srsly?

Comments

[themonkeycabal.livejournal.com]

In Hollywood? Where is that quote from? Bizarre.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

that HP Brit article wank over at f_w. the f_w poster was quoting something posted at the paper's blog. i was like, are you high????

[boofadil.livejournal.com]

I know a boatload of "Bible thumpers" that would giggle at that. A lot.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

see? that's what i'm sayin.

and then there's this:

Frankly I think a story about getting back at the guy who killed mommy and daddy is a little infantile and perfect for Hollywood rubbish.


except for the part where it's filmed in Britain with a Brit crew, Brit producers and Brit actors. oi.

[boofadil.livejournal.com]

Frankly I think a story about getting back at the guy who killed mommy and daddy is a little infantile

You addressed the Hollywood part, but dude...this? Dude. He sounds like he's an 11 year old who just learned a fancy new word, yo.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

totally. and gods know the British have never come up with anything trite, overdone or, you know, cliched. ::::rolls eyes so hard they stick:::

[boofadil.livejournal.com]

*reads down, sees discussion, looks up director...notes that he was a producer on the American Pie movies...laughs rilly hard.*

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

i rest my case, your honor.

[samdonne.livejournal.com]

Mel Gibson?

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

true, but everyone thinks he's a psycho, even by Hollywood standards, and there's only one of him.

[boogieordie.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's catering to bible thumpers so much as conveniently removing the core of the story which is largely atheist as to not alienate audiences when audiences = money. Not saying that's what they're doing, I haven't seen the movie yet, but that's the way that I read it. More than a bit over dramatically worded though since you're right, they don't give a fuck.

Have you read the books? They're not the most well written of books (most characters sound the same) but the story is fantastic, so much so the RTD took large parts of it to make series 2. I'd still recommend the books despite the writing.

[boogieordie.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm not entirely sure atheist is the correct word for this book. It has contempt for the fictional organized church which is quite corrupt. I don't want to give anything away but overall I'd say that calling the book strictly atheist is a gross oversimplification of it's attitudes on religion and spirituality.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

there's no "organized church" in the HP world, so i'm not sure what you mean. the books have contempt for blindness, abuse of power, willful stupidity, nanny stateism, sticking one's head in the sand, bullying, elitism, etc....none of which is specifically directed at organized religion.

the books are about elemental good and evil, elemental faith, elemental love and kindness, elemental trust, elemental hope...none of which can be interpreted, imho, as specifically a contempt for organized religion. it doesn't take potshots at institutions so much as the stupidity and fear of people within institutions, and that isn't the same thing at all.

ymmocv, but i don't see the HPverse the way you do at all.

[boogieordie.livejournal.com]

hahah, ok, yeah, I was talking about His Dark Materials, which is by Phillip Pullman. Sorry!

I've very confused. Where did HP come in? haha.

[boogieordie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no, HP isn't atheist at all.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

i totally still have HP on the brain i guess. d'oh.

[themonkeycabal.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's about His Dark Materials, too.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

it r. my brain just apparently can't jump tracks when i've got HP wank goin' on.

[themonkeycabal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd say 'atheist' is the wrong word, too. I think the original commenter there needs a new dictionary. There's a theology in the books, perhaps not a pretty one, but it's certainly not atheist.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

i wonder why that seems to get cornfuzzeled so much.

[eve11]

I don't know though, when you've got the book's author telling you the books are atheist in those words, it's kind of hard to refute. (I had a bit in here that was spoilery-- I'll remove it but just say that the whole fantastical part of the book is, to me, the embodiment of secular humanism). I think it's definitely very atheist, but that doesn't mean it's not spiritual. I'm probably arguing semantics here, saying it's not calling the book strictly atheist that's the oversimplification, it's the interpretation of the phrase "strictly atheist".

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

then maybe agnostic's a better word? and you can spoil me. book spoilage that ain't HP doesn't bother me t'all.

[eve11]

It's not agnostic; it definitely falls on the side of "No God"=atheist. boogieordie, if you haven't finished book 3 yet, you may want to skip my next ramblings.

Anyway, as the series goes on the philosophy becomes more and more transparent. That's not to say it's not spiritual, but the spirituality of the book is very much grounded in the metaphor of secular humanism. Daemons are souls, yes, but when a person dies, so does their daemon. So the spiritual side of the story is very much grounded in life and human actions. There's no life after death, no God, no judgement day, no redemption. The church is after Lyra because she's basically the embodiment of Eve taking the apple from the tree of knowledge, and this is put forth as the best thing that humanity could do.

A lot of the spiritual side of the story revolves around Dust-- the daemons and the soul are tied to it, and later on you learn that Dust is created by people enriching their world-- learning new things, creating art, loving each other, living good lives etc. Can't remember the exact details, but really it was less wishy-washy than that in the books. Basically, without people there would be no Dust, without Dust there would be no souls, without souls there would be no people, or at least nothing that makes people or life anything more than "nature's way of keeping meat fresh," as the Doctor would say. I don't know, I always figured "secular humanism" was the PC term for "atheist" -- either way the books are definitely steeped in those concepts.

[eve11]

to quote myself: and this is put forth as the best thing that humanity could do.

And if you look at it right, in the books it's more put forth as the only thing that humanity can do, and still stay human, ie, keep everything about them that gives them a soul. Part of being able to maintain that spirituality, to keep Dust in the world, is to reject Eden=ignorance. That bit goes beyond anti-church and is probably close to anti-God, or anti-theology anyway.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

A lot of the spiritual side of the story revolves around Dust-- the daemons and the soul are tied to it, and later on you learn that Dust is created by people enriching their world-- learning new things, creating art, loving each other, living good lives etc....Basically, without people there would be no Dust, without Dust there would be no souls, without souls there would be no people,

not having read the books beyond the first 50ish pages, i can't speak to them but only to my own perception of what you wrote and i don't see what you've described as mutually exclusive to the existence of a Deity, as in, thinking that means atheism, or even agnostic, really.

and i say that as someone that was raised Catholic and has pretty much nothing but disdain for organized religion. BUT, at least for me, my disdain doesn't mean i don't believe in a Deity, but rather that i think Organized Religion's got serious issues and has probably done just as much harm to the world as good.

that, and i don't know that said Deity isn't simply the Universe in all its mysterious, brilliant glory, instead of some anthropomorphized Thing that man has created. i mean, why can't God, or Whomever, be literally everything, yanno, like Lucas said, only not lame? why does it got to be all Dude On High Playing Man Chess?

i think Eden and Original Sin and Heaven and Hell and all that bullshit are constructs that man made to try and genuinly understand his crazy brilliant world, and the nature of life, and the randomness and awesomeness and evilness and horror and joy. which, you know, groovy because Life, The Universe and Everything is hella complicated, but those constructs may not be absolute truth. but my questioning those constructs doesn't, to me anyway, mean i don't believe there might be something out there simply because i think the dudes in charge are all pretty much schmucks.

is that what the author's going for? i dunno. we'll see how the text strikes me when i'm done. i could totally jump on the "yup. atheist" bandwagon at the end.

[eve11]

not having read the books beyond the first 50ish pages, i can't speak to them but only to my own perception of what you wrote and i don't see what you've described as mutually exclusive to the existence of a Deity, as in, thinking that means atheism, or even agnostic, really.

I suppose you could see it that way, but in terms of the book you'd basically have to add another hierarchy onto it: Why does Dust happen the way it does, did someone make it? etc. That doesn't seem to be the point of the novels to me. All of those messages don't preclude a supreme being, I suppose, but to me they're a strong humanist message. Pullman's message goes beyond issues with Organized Religion. Oh, he has issues with Organized Religion, sure, but I think the point of the books is stronger than that.

that, and i don't know that said Deity isn't simply the Universe in all its mysterious, brilliant glory, instead of some anthropomorphized Thing that man has created.

I suppose the place where you differ from Pullman is that the message isn't really "I don't know, could be", but firmly, "God doesn't exist beyond what Man makes of him." "God" is the universe. In my mind, that's swinging pretty close to atheism. It's right off the map if you're a literalist for the Bible or a fundamentalist.

I think beyond that it's a question of semantics. What exactly do you mean by "atheist"? Dictionary says "a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings." And I suppose it's up to you to understand what they mean by "Being". But in Pullman's thing, if the Dust is really a human creation, and it's what drives spirituality, and that's what he's proposing, then I'd say it *does* preclude a Deity. The only way God can enter into it is if a Supreme being creates people to make Dust, and that argument goes elephants all the way down. Of course any atheist or humanist argument has to leave room for a Deity, in the form of "where did it come from?" and "why does it work that way?". But Dust is still just a metaphor in the story; ostensibly one could come up with scientific explanations for the propagation of good will and harmony in ethical living.

According to the London Times, Pullman is a "self-confessed atheist". So authorial intent in this case is most likely atheism. He may indeed be a hostile anti-church anti-God person; I don't know for certain, but I do know he's not agnostic or skeptical. And what I like about the books is how they use the metaphor of Dust to show a world-- a fantastic, wonderful world, where God doesn't exist, where you have the years you're given and then you return to Dust-- not sentient, not alive, but living on in the ideas, contributions, love and memories you leave behind. That's secular humanism, or atheism if you want a more charged word for it.

[eve11]

Two Pullman quotes from here: http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentViewArticle.asp?article=2234

"Christians... say that if you are an atheist you have to be a nihilist and there’s no meaning any more. Well, that’s nonsense... Now that I’m conscious, now that I’m responsible, there is a meaning, and it is to make things better and to work for greater good and greater wisdom. That’s my meaning – and it comes from my understanding of my position. It’s not nihilism at all. It’s very far from it."

and to the British Humanist Association: “What little I know of the worldview of your movement makes me think I would probably agree with most of it, though I’m not sure I’d be bold enough to describe myself as a humanist: tolerant, part-time, curious, semi-superstitious and largely skeptical pagan might be nearer the mark. “I am happy to support you and argue for your aims, and pour ridicule on faith schools and the teaching of creationism and pester the BBC to open up Thought for the Day, but I’ll do so as a private and irresponsible individual, and not as a grave and dignified public figure.”

So he does say "largely skeptical" which leaves some room for agnostic tendencies.

[eve11]

(and one last clarification) in the form of "where did it come from?" and "why does it work that way?". The answer to these questions can always be, "Because that's how God wanted it."

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

All of those messages don't preclude a supreme being, I suppose, but to me they're a strong humanist message.

and i don't see a strong humanist message, or strong humanism, as being by default or definition mutually exclusive to belief in a deity or participation in an organized religion.

I suppose the place where you differ from Pullman is that the message isn't really "I don't know, could be", but firmly, "God doesn't exist beyond what Man makes of him."

and i don't know that such a belief *isn't* correct, i just don't think, personally, that such a statement automatically rules out God.

there's a reason why Michaelangelo painted the cloud that God floats on - on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - as an exact side view of the human brain; he was asking if Man was God's greatest invention, or God was Man's. it's a good question, and, i believe, both still unanswered and not ruling out a belief in God.

"God" is the universe. In my mind, that's swinging pretty close to atheism. It's right off the map if you're a literalist for the Bible or a fundamentalist.

which is why i personally find organized religion, no offense to anyone at all anywhere intended, narrow-minded, stunted, stupid and power hungry. i mean, really, how arrogant are people to assume that they can know anything about the scope and nature of God, one way *or* the other?

ultimately, these are, of course, my belief sets and not Pullman's, which, to me, is what matters. what i take from a text is based on how *i* perceive what an author wrote, not what the author personally believes. sometimes those jive and sometimes they don't.

[thatames.livejournal.com]

It's actually become very trendy in the past couple years to actively court the Christian crowd. We've had meetings with experts and stuff, for serious. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

As for His Dark Materials, I think it's underestimating the public that just because an atheist writes something that may have some anti-organized religion overtones that a mostly-theistic audience will turn away. I don't think the books would be as successful as they are if that were the case.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

i think that's wise of Hollywood because they should know as much about the totality of their audience as possible.

that said, i don't think it's what this person is referring. they wrote it as already true, as if all of Hollywood together has this currently existing mindset. which, hello? do they watch what's coming out of Hollywood? oi.

As for His Dark Materials, I think it's underestimating the public that just because an atheist writes something that may have some anti-organized religion overtones that a mostly-theistic audience will turn away. I don't think the books would be as successful as they are if that were the case.

the quoted poster was actually making the *opposite* point, though, that Hollywood by default is going to "christianize" the film, because Hollywood caters to Christians, and how can we stand that.

as to your point there, though, yeah, i totally agree. whatever a writer's personal intent, belief set or whatever, the audience will get what the audience gets because the audience perceives thru their own filters, not the author's.