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Here’s a quote I found while surfing Dave White’s review archives:*

What’s great about movie atheists is that they never arrive at atheism because they’re smart or have any sort of philosophical basis for their beliefs. It’s all, “I'm just mad at God for ignoring me. ME!”

He’s right. That seems to be the only acceptable way for an atheist character to work on TV or in the movies. They always started out as Christians, but they were abused and bad shit went down and they decided that God was a jerk and now they don’t believe in him just to spite him, using logic that would make your head explode. Nobody ever points out that somebody like that isn’t actually an atheist. They’re an angry theist.

And just to add insult to injury, they’re shown irrationally clinging to their ~~resentment~~ disbelief in the face of “proof” (often in the form of warm fuzzies) of Something Greater. If your hero is an atheist, they either reform, or it is one of their great flaws.

Just once I’d like to see a television drama or movie where the crazy religious person doesn’t turn out to be right, or at least ambiguously not wrong. Good luck.

I was thinking about that recently because at Pirates I finally got to see the Golden Compass trailer, which my computer has systematically refused to play in all forms. After I saw it, as I changed my underwear I started wondering exactly where this was going to go.

This series has all the makings of a blockbuster. It’s written in a convenient trilogy form, laden with intrigue, horror, suspense, action sequences, special effects, awesome settings, and a very visual writing style. But while all the elements of a blockbuster are there, there is one glaring problem.

While Compass is a little fuzzy on this, as it ends and the next two books in the trilogy get going you start to realize that the plot, which started out kind of mystery-horror-fantasy-sci-fi, seems to be sort of freight-training straight toward a war between the Good Forces Of Dazzlingly Smart, Free-Willed, Sexy, And Good-Looking Atheism and the Evil Forces Of Big Dumb Mean Religion That Gets Off On Keeping You From Getting Off, And Also On Torture.** That’s … that’s against the rules, isn’t it?! You can’t make a big screen blockbuster telling your audience that their cherished beliefs are a crock!*** Here, make a movie where the grouchy “atheist” who yells at the sky admits that she just feels abandoned by God! That’s safe, right? Ooh! How about more of that kids series that's actually an annoying Christian parable? We don’t have to edit out its position on religion, right?

So I figured they’d never actually make these into movies, and was fine with it except that I wished Philip Pullman, whose stories I like much better than J.K. Rowling’s, could cash in on his superior skill. But they are making it (and, I hope, Phil is cashing in), and so that leads me to wonder: did they have to ~~break~~ ~~vanillify~~ fix it to make it work? Or are we going to get the real story?

Either way, I’m so at the movie, because no matter what, a combination of panserbjørne, steampunk, witches, and Texans will make one hell of a movie.

*Dave White, aka

djmrswhite, is my favorite film critic. Usually he’s absolutely right. Sometimes he is absolutely wrong. But he’s always funny, and he introduces me to a lot of movies I wouldn’t otherwise know about. And he likes tea.

**And if you’re a teenaged Amelia, you think, “Well, he’s getting a little carried away driving his point home, but finally, somebody who doesn’t put my point of view on the evil side!”

***And that’s not even counting that other pivotal bit at the end that leaves readers going, “Wait, did they just … ? Whoa!” That’s not going to make it more marketable, either.