Angels, Demons and the Magical Missing Middle Easterner

A frequent cavil by participants in the Angels & Demons debate is, “It’s just a movie!” (Or, “It’s fiction!”)

The implication is that the filmmakers made this movie just so they could tell a ripping good yarn. Stipulating for the moment that it is a good yarn, there’s no way to show that the filmmakers were indeed fully cognizant of their movie’s cultural impact. There’s no way we can get inside their minds, right?

Hassassin Assassin

Well, I’ve figured out a way to do just that. No, I don’t have ESP or a special mind-reading device. But I do have common sense (pace my wife).

Now, whenever someone adapts a book into a movie, it’s instructive to examine where the movie differs from the book. If the movie version alters a key detail in the book, you can’t blame the original author for that decision. It’s clearly a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers.

One key difference between the book and the movie here lies in the character of the Assassin. Simply put, he’s the bad guy. He is the one who actually commits all of the brutal, sadistic murders that take place in the main plot.

But in the original novel, this character is identified as “Hassassin,” a member of the original Islamic cult of the same name (and the origin of the modern English word “assassin”). He’s described as a misogynistic, “mahogany-skinned” Middle Easterner.

In Howard’s adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, the murderer is an albino member of Opus Dei, an actual Roman Catholic society. That character is kept entirely unchanged from book to movie. (Offending both Opus Dei members and albinos, incidentally.)

But in Angels & Demons, Howard decided to change the murderer from a Muslim Arab motivated by a centuries-old sectarian grudge, into… a nondescript Dane motivated by mere money?

You tell me, who is more fascinating? A member of an exotic, age-old secret society seeking revenge? Or just another white guy who’s only in it for the Euros? From a creative standpoint, it’s a no-brainer. The villain is a key element of a great story. Try to imagine Star Wars without Darth Vader, or The Dark Knight without the Joker.

Unless you are concerned about something other than mere good storytelling. Howard obviously had no qualms about offending Opus Dei or albinos, which is why the villain in The Da Vinci Code stayed the same from novel to film. But something made him radically refashion the murderer in Angels and Demons.

There’s only one plausible explanation for this change. The filmmakers wanted to protect the image of Middle Easterners. They know that how you depict people, even in a fictional movie, has an impact on our society’s views.

Sure, one character alone won’t make a sea-change, just like one movie may not transform the world overnight. But the cumulative impact of our culture is unmistakable. Culture is to people what water is to fish. Culture shapes the way people live, think and believe far more than does politics.

Does anybody honestly doubt that Hollywood is acutely aware of its power to shape public opinion? This very website is predicated on that (well-founded) assumption. Why do you think the Oscars persistently award the most progressive or liberal movies?

And why do you think Hollywood made a seemingly endless stream of anti-war movies during the peak of the Iraq conflict? After the first few bottomed out at the box office, they knew it was a financial loser. And yet they persevered in throwing more and more anti-war and anti-military movies into the cultural mix, like so many suicidal kamikaze planes.

And why do you think the advertising industry exists? If a 30-second commercial can change people’s shopping habits, what do you think a two-hour movie or 10-year TV franchise can do?

Let me stress that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. If you want to make money-losing message movies, knock yourself out. One man’s ham-fisted, vomit-inducing, over-the-top message movie is another’s deep, socially relevant, life-changing event. Just don’t tell me that you had no idea your movie might have any social impact.

So, who’s being naive here? The people who say, “It’s just a movie”? Or the ones who understand there’s usually an agenda?

Check out this typical comment at my second-favorite blog created by Andrew Breitbart:

“We need to keep an anti-religion mindset in the popular culture if we are going to continue to fight Christian and corporate fascism. Any suspicion we can cast onto Christianity, or any other brand of guilt and fear-inducing magical thinking, gives the corporate and religious oligarchs one less weapon they can use to manipulate us with. – Retrofuturistic”

And the Guardian, hardly a defender of the Faith, posted this headline: “Angels and Demons WILL damage the Catholic church.” (Emphasis in original.) It went on to argue (approvingly) that the movie will “fuel the belief that Catholicism is incompatible with modernity.”

In interviews Brown (and the filmmakers) say that his books are meant to get people talking, to ask questions. Rather than lead to more clarity, however, the countless mistakes, deliberate or otherwise, create great clouds of confusion.

Art historians have to wearily explain to their students, “No, Bernini wasn’t a member of the Illuminati, nor did he hate the Church. In fact, he was a devout Catholic who prayed for hours a day.”

Instead of teaching something new and true, they waste valuable lesson time debunking falsehoods, clearing weeds instead of planting new seeds. Just as bad currency drives out good, junk history pollutes minds instead of enlightening them.

One of the main attractions of Brown’s books, and the movies based on them, is the transcendent beauty of a culture once called Christendom. The tragedy is, Brown and Howard are exploiting this beauty, while at the same time contributing to its downfall.

Do you ever wonder why most modern and post-modern art and architecture seem so empty and cold, even alienating? Do you ever wonder why the art and buildings preceding the rise of Modernism are so much more inspiring than what has come since? Perhaps it’s because contemporary art and architecture are the products of a culture that has rejected sanctity, eschewed sacredness.

As philosopher Roger Scruton writes in the latest issue of City Journal:

“The current habit of desecrating beauty suggests that people are as aware as they ever were of the presence of sacred things. Desecration is a kind of defense against the sacred, an attempt to destroy its claims. In the presence of sacred things, our lives are judged, and to escape that judgment, we destroy the thing that seems to accuse us.

“Christians have inherited from Saint Augustine and from Plato the vision of this transient world as an icon of another and changeless order. They understand the sacred as a revelation in the here and now of the eternal sense of our being.”

Increasingly, modern man is akin to a barbarian tribe camped out in the decaying city of a once-great civilization, gaping incomprehendingly at the exquisite ruins in their midst, admiring them while not having a clue as to how to recreate them (or at least, how to recreate the conditions that made them possible).

Many here who said they wanted to see Angels & Demons despite the negative reviews cited the beauty of Rome and Vatican City as the main attraction. Isn’t it ironic that the movie is profiting from this awesome splendor, while viciously chomping on the hand that created that art in the first place?