The Da Vinci load (of ...)

I was never interested in the Da Vinci Code. I don’t have time for those kinds of books. But I was compelled to take interest after learning that my uncle is spearheading a campaign to ban the movie. I knew him to be a bit of a fanatic, so I can’t say that I was surprised. Within the context of a liberal-democratic society he has all the rights to protest and to try and convince people to not watch it. Asking for a ban is out of the line though. One shouldn’t be able to use democratic means to subvert democracy.

This Da Vinci Code circus has all the characteristics of a moral panic. The reasoning behind this crusade is typical of any moral panic. Something is threatening our social values and we must do everything we could to stop it. Stanley Cohen discusses this in depth in his ‘Folk Devils Devils and Moral Panics’. The only panic that should arise out of this story is a panic about the threat to our little democracy; particularly when one considers that we already don’t have much of it. If the fervent Catholics think that it’s a sin to watch the movie, they just shouldn’t watch it. What you don’t do is call for its ban. What next? Criminalise adultery? Witch-hunt the atheists? Have blasphemy wardens?

What I find irritating in this whole issue is how insulting these Catholic fanatics are to their brethren’s intelligence. They seem to think that people are nincompoops. Are people so gullible that they will be magically brainwashed by a movie? In Malta? The country that wants Christ on its Euro coins? A country where you can spot scores of church domes from any modest hill? The country that teaches Catholicism in schools, forces indoctrination on kids (duttrina) and is pretty much holier than the Vatican? The country that prides itself in an abundance of bare-footed pilgrims? Is Catholic Malta’s faith so weak that a hyped up Hollywood movie is such a threat that it must be banned? Makes you wonder doesn’t it?