Tuesday

Books and Bandwagons

As I can really only watch Deal or No Deal in 30 second spurts, that left to peruse the channels of my TV at will last night whilst waiting for The Apprentice to come on. As luck would have it, I stumbled across DaVinci Code week on History Television… for you Americans out there, HT is the lameass Canadian equivalent of the History Channel which we can only get up here via satellite, which licks because as a History fanatic, the History Channel is about the closest thing to perfection on TV… but now is not the time nor the place to talk about my insatiable need to delve into all things from the past…

Before I continue, I must first ascertain whether there is still a person left in the civilized world who has not read the book. If there is, then shame on you…excepting of course that you are a conservative Christian fanatic whose church will ex-communicate you if you even so much as pick up the book, let alone having to confess to your priest about having impure thoughts about reading it, thus condemning your sole to an indeterminate visit to the lower bowels of Hell… If you were anything like me, I fought against reading it, kind of like how some people refuse to read Harry Potter for the simple reason that they don’t want to jump onto that bandwagon, but honestly people…

Some bandwagons can be fun and are meant to be jumped on. I mean, it’s possible that you could find yourself on a bandwagon with a broken wheel, or even a psychotic band leader, but much of the time, the popular bandwagons are popular for a reason so it is neither here nor there if you decide to hop on for a bit… and who knows, you may even learn a new ditty or two… and what if the bandleader is really cute? I’m just saying.

Anyway, so onto the DC bandwagon I jumped on last summer and it truly was one of the most fun little jaunts I ever did have. It’s a great book, even for those of you who could care a less about history or religion… It’s just a well written story. And having read it and loved it, I’ve been sitting back and watching all the controversy surrounding it and pretty much just laughing my ass off as I imagine that Dan Brown has also been doing…for a few reasons, but mostly because of this…

Do the churches so completely have their heads in places where the sun doesn’t shine that they don’t realize the surest way to get as many people as possible to read or watch something is to tell them that they shouldn’t read or watch something? It’s kind of reminiscent of when you are growing up and your parents tell you not to do something… but you do anyway, even if you don’t really want to, because your parents told you not to. And so instead of trusting your children to make their own choices about what is right and there being a very good likelihood that said children will pay no nevermind to the temptations the world has to offer, like booze or fiction… That was, until you told them not to. Or something like that.

So despite it’s best efforts to get people to not read the book… or have them go see the movie (which comes out soon yay) the churches, have in fact, done what no amount of paid publicity could ever hope to have accomplished and have ensured that people will do just that… It’s brilliant in its simplicity. If the church had been smarter, it would have cut a deal with the publisher and movie studio for a cut of the prophets… haha… prophets… get it? Prophets? Profits? I kill me…

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

2 comments:

john boy said...

I am an art historian, so no, I have not read the book. Too many of my students think all of his historical references are correct, but they are not. I know it is only going to get worse after the film comes out. I will probably have to go and see it just so I will be equipped to respond to all the crazy questions I will get next term. LOL

mollyblogger said...

Dan Brown is a bad writer who stumbled upon a good story... but even so... yes, it's a good book. Poor John Boy has to deal with people who take a fictional piece of writing and treat it as truth... reminds me of another book... what book was that again... you know, the one with Jesus and stuff....

Even better than having read the book is having read it so long ago that by the time the movie comes out it'll seem shiny brand new again.

But cutos to the studios for getting Amelie to play the part of the frenchwoman.... she's so damned adorable I can't handle it.