Doubt, Dogma, Clayton, DaVinci

By Barbara Groark

Back in the 1980s and -90s, there was a lot of talk among conservatives about male-bashing and Catholic-bashing. That was before September 11, before the O.J. trial, and before the priest abuse scandals. It was also during the time of protests against such artistic presentations as a crucifix in a tub of urine.

We’ve become quieter on those topics since then. Maybe people are tired of sweeping generalizations. (But then, I avoid talk radio.) Maybe the variety of types being arrested and going to jail is food for quieter thought. Maybe depictions in the media of both men and religion have become a little more subtle and ambiguous, as if addressed to grownups (with exceptions of course). I thought I’d write a little about depictions of Catholicism in the movies.

I saw the movie Doubt recently. The opening sequence in which we are introduced to the Meryl Streep character of the school principal made me laugh out loud, since I myself somewhere between third and fifth grades was approached from behind by a very stern nun as I whispered to my girlfriend in one of the children’s pews before Sunday Mass started. I remember being appalled that I was getting yelled at, or rather hissed at like a Canada goose whose nest you get too close to, and feeling that I was being charged unfairly since we were just getting settled in the pew. But most of these things blow over once the incident is over, and I don’t even think I saw that nun again.

The movie is a story for grown-ups, thank God. The principal, Sister Aloysius, is not wrong about everything, though she possibly, so to speak, “cuts her meat too small.” Her warnings against the use of ballpoint pens are hilarious and bring back some grade school memories. Whether the priest (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) in the story is guilty or not of sexual abuse of a student is not clear at the end. You could argue either way from the evidence given. Many people in the audience would probably be hoping he is not guilty, since his character is more appealing personally than that of the school principal, and he argues for a kinder, more humane attitude from Church representatives.

Fortunately, the charges against him did not bring back any grade school memories, though I’ve heard a story of narrow escape by boys from Long Island with good instincts who later found out the priest in question had been accused at his previously assigned parish.

In Doubt, the two characters of principal and priest have several confrontations during the course of the story that are real theological battles. At one point, the priest asks Sister Aloysius, “Haven’t you ever done anything wrong?” This question may resonate with our age group, who has been accused without qualification or mercy by those older and younger of real and imagined offenses.

The movie Doubt contains no mysticism or miracles but happens on an entirely naturalistic plane. Try and see it if you can.

If you want some mysticism and miracles as well as comedy, you need Dogma from 1999. In that one the Angel Gabriel appears to an abortion clinic worker and gives her an assignment to save the world. George Carlin plays a cardinal who wants to water down Catholic doctrine as a marketing ploy to bring more people to church. That doesn’t work. Rebel angels appear. Chaos and adventure ensue.

When I first heard of this movie, it sounded like just a Catholic-bashing tirade, which I had heard enough of in my own 20s and 30s from age-mates and college professors, some part of which was more an affectionate but “Thank-God-that’s-over” look back, just as guys talk about being in the Army, and some of which was the bitterness of people who never expected to be found out.

Anyway, I figured I could skip seeing Dogma. But when I finally gave in and watched it years later on Comedy Central, I was surprised to see its essentially conservative viewpoint, however back-handed. The Carlin character was definitely being criticized. The abortion clinic worker gets transformed. The appearance of the Angel Gabriel reminds me of a dream I once had. What’s a little irreverence along the way? I think Catholics invented irreverence anyway, didn’t they, particularly Irishmen, or maybe not particularly? The Frenchmen do pretty well in Mardi Gras season.

And a bunch of Irish Catholic brothers are depicted in Michael Clayton from 2007, but nothing in this corporate-intrigue-and-murder suspenser is overt. You just know you went to school with guys like this. It’s a “here’s-why-we-like-men” movie. And there’s George Clooney.

I knew this was a good one because, for several days afterwards, I would go over in my mind something that happened and realize something new. I found myself identifying with the character Arthur, the crazy guy, the whistle-blower on the bad things that are happening. The food for thought lasts a long time. I’m still pondering (I just saw it last weekend), so I won’t say more. Recommended.

Do you remember the big Church flap over The Da Vinci Code, the book from 2003 and later movie? I remember walking into a bookstore and seeing a table full of discount books on the Knights Templar. I thought to myself, “There’s interest in the Knights Templar these days?” I hadn’t thought of the Knights Templar since grade school and high school studies of the Crusades.

Then I read The DaVinci Code in paperback, borrowed from my mother, who read it in one night she said. And I understood. The book was being passed around among the elders in my family, including a church deacon, who had passed it my mother. And it was a page-turner. In fact, I started feeling whiplash as one chapter ended in a scene of horror, and in one page-turn we were someplace else across the world where other shocking things would occur. I started laughing to myself at the pace of action and the author’s technique – some people think this is an awfully written book, but I think Dan Brown is a conscious comedian, like Carmen Miranda and Gracie Allen, who play dumb but are actually smarter than their characters.

Anyway, you get to the middle of the book where the old professor starts his tirade against the machinations of the Church and what the real truth really is – and I was about to close it and not finish, since the statements were pretty severe and offensive even to those of us who are not overly devotional. But I noticed where I was in the book, exactly half-way, and I decided to gamble that things would change, if not overturn by the end. And they did. [Spoiler-alert!] By the end, this same professor was being led away in handcuffs. Dan Brown the author, not his characters, may hold a more conservative viewpoint than those who accuse him of heresy. We just have to be willing to be chided, and hear what the opponent is actually saying. How else will we answer?

An old teacher of mine once said you need to pay attention to who is talking in books like this in order to decide whom to trust. For example, all kinds of things are said in the old dialogues of Plato, but we can dismiss most of what is said unless Socrates is talking. Socrates we can trust. The others are unreliable.

It’s a little harder to decide what character to trust if Socrates isn’t around. And, especially in the grownup movies mentioned in this article, you never know who is wearing sheep’s clothing, and who may be an unexpected friend, or who begins weakly but ends up saving the day.

I find that, as a depicter of academia and its attitudes, Brown is pretty accurate in The Da Vinci Code. As noted, some of my old professors would give Brown’s wise old professor some competition, especially the former seminarians among them.

William F. Buckley was complaining about and telling on these guys since 1950 (God and Man at Yale). Maybe a little Dan Brown comedy is a more effective answer against them, if we can read without being taken in and take a few gambles.