'The Golden Compass' Film Draws Controversy

Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 11/8/2007 9:31:00 AM

Is The Golden Compass anti-Christian? As the December 7 release of a film based on Philip Pullman’s novel approaches, that question has become a hot topic in some Christian circles and, more recently, on the school librarian discussion group LM_NET.

"These books denigrate Christianity, trash the Catholic church, and sell the virtues of atheism," Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, an organization that defends Catholics’ civil rights, told Fox News, referring to Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy, which includes The Golden Compass (1996), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000, all Knopf).

But not all librarians and clergy members are buying that. Laura Brooks, a media specialist at Ameran Elementary School in Northville, MI, and a member of LM_NET, says she’s researched Pullman’s “daemons”—people’s spiritual alter egos that appear as animals—and believes the English author’s intent was to represent humankind’s “divine spirit,” rather than its inner demons. And Allan O'Grady Cuseo, director of library services at the Catholic Bishop Kearney High School in Rochester, NY, doesn’t think Pullman’s trilogy is antireligious. Instead, it’s "about 'anti-control' of thought," he says. As for the books’ heroine, a young girl named Lyra, Cuseo says she’s "very much like Harry Potter" in her efforts to save the world.

Representatives of New Line Cinema have hastened to assure moviegoers that the film (which stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig) largely omits the religious components of the popular trilogy. What’s been left intact is Pullman’s story of 11-year-old Lyra (played by Dakota Blue Richards), who journeys to a frozen, alternative universe to save kidnapped children and encounters a mercenary polar bear, gypsies, witches, and other magical characters.

But there’s no denying that Pullman is known, somewhat controversially, for his stand against organized religion. On his Web site, the author says he feels "the sense of awe and mystery we feel when we look at the universe, the urge to find a meaning and a purpose in our lives…[but] churches and priesthoods have set themselves up to rule people's lives in the name of some invisible god… and done terrible damage…. That is the religion I hate, and I'm happy to be known as its enemy."

Still, Paula Joseph-Johnson, who is an assistant library media specialist at Bristow High School in Bristow, OK, and an observant Catholic, is willing to cut Pullman some slack. “I don’t think that questioning [religious beliefs] is wrong, because most theologians question [them],” she says. “I don’t think just because something makes you question your beliefs, or examine them more closely, that that makes it wrong.”