One Readers Opinion

One Readers Opinion...

Now that Harrisburg will soon be blessed with an arts cinema in Midtown (replete with Emperor Reed’s blessing), things are looking up for local film fans. And I know that MODE must be pleased. After all it can’t be easy covering the arts in a town where the newest in theater tends to mean a sports bar where they use the mute button at half-time. MODE will surely want to have a corner directed to reviewing those artsy flicks come spring. May I heartily recommend … anyone but Cole Smithey. If a playful, irreverent mainstream movie like the new release Dogma sent Smithey far off into the deep end of apoplexy, mixed metaphors, and overabundant quotation marks (see November MODE), I shudder to think what truly independent, controversial cinema would do to him, and vice-versa.

I don’t know whether Smithey is right that Americans are more likely to be Atheist, Agnostic, or Buddhist than Christian these days. Could be. But he rejects Dogma, a flawed and irreverent, but also clever and provocative movie, for some rather reactionary, un-Christian reasons. The worst offenses are apparently the twin notions of a black Jesus and a female God. For many Christians this idea of a black Christis rather less of a heresy than Smithey suggests. I worship in a Catholic Church with a picture of a black baby Jesus up on the wall … no lightning bolts yet. If Smithey’s idea of Jesus looks more like the air brushed Kris Kristofferson look-alike often replicated in this country, that’s fine, but it ain’t a fact, just his personal preference/baggage. And of course, Dogma director Kevin Smith has the preponderance of evidence on his side. Walk around Judea, Egypt, or Palestine (today or 1999 years ago) and you’ll find a mix of skin tones, most of which would fit in more easily in Allison Hill as in Camp Hill. The Bible makes no mention of Mary being a recent immigrant from Sweden, though it does mention baby Jesus as having hair like wool, not flaxen locks. As for a female God: that is a departure from traditional Christian views, though it is a departure many Christians I know are comfortable with. And as God, I found Alanis Morrisette (in large part blessedly silent, smiling, and dressed in a sort of hippie first communion get-up) much less annoying and offensive than when she plays herself on MTV.

My point is that no one knows what color Jesus was, nor should it matter to one’s faith. Us modern mortals, can tend to be rather … dogmatic about such time-bound beliefs, though, which brings us to Dogma’s point, or one of them: that time and circumstance-bound beliefs (dogmas) can obstruct one’s way to faith. This is what Chris Rock’s character in the movie, the so-called 13th apostle, sometimes argued in his manic dialogues. It is also the struggle that Linda Fiorentino’s character, the movie’s heroine, goes through; how to keep and nurture faith, and from that, the strength to persist, despite one’s confusion and struggles with belief. Of course to have faith, one needs to believe in Something; finding the balance between the two could be the beginning of a great post-flick discussion over coffee, if only a) one wasn’t too busy gathering metaphorical kindling to burn Kevin Smith at the stake, like Smithey, and b) there was somewhere to get a cup of decent coffee at those infernal mall multiplexes. By its end, Smithey’s review showed a lot more vehemence than coherence, blaming capitalism and suburbia for Dogma (perhaps so, but those evil twins have spawned a lot worse …), and blaming Dogma for preventing the influx of foreign films about accordions (surely it can’t shoulder all the blame for that one …)

Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t want director Kevin Smith as mythology professor, or Dogma shown in Sunday School class. The movie had its share, if not more, of scatological humor, and a smallish dose of gore. In each of his previous movies, Smith has walked and sometimes crossed the line between irreverent taboo-breaking and offensive stereotyping. He does so again in Dogma, but along the way he also provides some inspired, if flippant, starting points for discussion, and a witty and provocative two hours. It also has Salma Hayek in a bikini. Need more? How about George Carlin as a new-agey Bishop? That is genius casting, the role George has been waiting for for 30 years. In sum: down with prudish, dogmatic reviews, and up with Dogma.

— Richard Ring, Harrisburg via e-mail