'Eli' and 'Avatar' and blasphemy

===============================

AFTER THE SHOW
Movies, TV, Culture and Society

Number 484, Jan. 31, 2010

===============================

PARALLELS BETWEEN
CONTROVERSY AND CENSORSHIP

Debates over 'Eli' and 'Avatar' once
could have led to film blasphemy charges 

By John Greenwald

Two movies currently playing have stirred up storms of controversy, "The Book of Eli" (2010) and "Avatar" (2009). In the past, such debates could have meant the censors' scissors.

The Week magazine summarizes "Eli's" plot and controversies best: "In [this] post-Apocalyptic biblical thriller, ... Denzel Washington plays a blind man who feels he's been called by God to carry the last remaining copy of the Bible across the country. Is 'Eli' an engrossing tale about the power of faith, or a cartoonish, exploitative distortion of Christianity?" The Week offers quotes from both sides.

James Cameron's 3-D billion-dollar blockbuster, "Avatar," takes place 150 years in the future on a faraway moon. Mercenary imperialists from Earth have invaded Pandori to mine a rare ore. To better deal with Pandora's natives, the Earthlings combine a few people's DNA with the moon's own creatures, the 10-foot tall, humanoid na'vi.

Eventually, the Earthlings and the na'vi begin mortal combat: the Earthlings with their weaponry and technology, the na'vi with their ability to plug into Pandora itself. And with the hybrid na'vi in the middle.

With that kind of plot, it's easy to see where controversies -- especially in our riven era -- will arise.

Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote that "Avatar" is a "long apologia for pantheism -- a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world." Worse, he called pantheism "Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now."  That may, or may not, be true. But for Hollywood's last one hundred years, Christianity was its religion of choice.

There's more. In a front-page follow up, the Times detailed the arguments left, right and sideways spinning around "Avatar."

Social and political conservatives dislike its portrayals of religion and military forces. Feminists say the male na'vi are stronger and more muscular than the females. The Vatican newspaper's film critic said the movie "gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature."

China's of two minds. It pulled the 2-D version of film in favor of a state-sponsored biopic about Confucius. The na'vi's revolt may remind some Chinese of their own government's repression and exploitation of local peoples. But China also renamed one of its peaks "the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain." A Hollywood photographer shot the mountain for reference for the movie in 2008.

A Chicago alderman and former Marine called the movie anti-military and anti-American. And finally, antismoking advocates want to give the movie an R-rating because the lead scientist character smokes. Not that we know what she's smoking 150 years hence, old-fashioned addictive tobacco or some new fangled harmless substance.

Not that long ago, such controversies easily could have led to government censorship.

Many states had their own censorship boards. In the early 1960s, I remember seeing "Approved by the State of Maryland" on every film I went to in Baltimore. New York State banned the short film "The Miracle" (1948) for blasphemy, until a Supreme Court in 1952 overturned that law. Still many state boards held on through the early 1980s.

From 1934 to 1968, the film industry tried to get around state-by-state censorship by instituting its own virtual censorship, the Production Code. To be released in America, all films had to meet its rigid restrictions.

But the code saw cracks in its power in the 1960s. First, a smattering of foreign films made it to American theaters without its okay. Then, the code's overseers, the Motion Picture Association of America, overruled the code's administrators after appeals by the producers of "The Pawnbroker" (1965). In 1968, the MPAA junked its one-size-fits-all code in favor of the current age-based ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17).

Still, the federal government continues to try its hand at state-sponsored censorship through fines of broadcast radio and television owners for what it calls indecent or sexual images and speech. It's levied fines in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars against broadcasters for tasteless stunts by radio shock jocks, occasional expletives uttered by musicians in award shows and that famous quarter-second of Janet Jackson's exposed right breast. Wisely, the FCC keeps hands off political speech, mainly talk radio shows, despite their occasional moments of hatefulness.

Censorship, of one kind or another, continues to be an issue in the United States and around the world. Who knows which country will use scissors to trim "Eli" or "Avatar" because of the issues I've mentioned? China, Iran and others censor Web and personal networking sites, search engines and more. U.S. legislators have urged the state department to oppose more forcefully China's limits on the Web and Google. (But one Washington legislator wants the FCC to control cable television the same way it controls over-the-air broadcasting.)

Personally, I hate government censorship, even in the form of fines. I understand, and agree with, the need to use censorship to protect children. But anything beyond that treats adults like children. Entertainers and artists have always pushed our sensibilities, usually to our benefit. Yes, there's a lot of crap out there -- just try flipping through your pay cable channels. Yet, that's the risk of living in a free society.

Readers can e-mail John Greenwald at johnedit@comcast.net.


-- 30 --

Copyright 2010 by John Greenwald. All rights reserved