A senior Vatican official has called for a boycott of “The Da Vinci Code,” while the Council of Churches in Jordan and Roman Catholic activists in India want their governments to ban the film altogether.
But what’s notable in the U.S. – where the film’s release next week has believers of many denominations nervous and angry – is that boycotts are taking a back seat to anti-“Da Vinci” books and teaching sessions about the Gospels.
Some religious commentators figure that movie boycotts make Christians look bad and don’t accomplish much. Even Opus Dei, the Catholic organization that’s villainously portrayed in Dan Brown’s story, is going for educational outreach.
“It seems that boycotts are becoming less and less effective,” said Bob Waliszewski of the conservative Focus on the Family, whose pluggedinonline.com media guide draws 1 million visits a month.
The practical problem with boycotts, and even harsh criticism of a film, is that it winds up drawing more attention to the movie in question, they figure.
An Opus Dei leader cited attacks on Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” as one reason his community was bypassing a boycott. And while the gay-themed “Brokeback Mountain” irked some conservative groups, commentator Dick Rolfe of the Dove Foundation, which encourages production of family-friendly films, cautioned last year that: “If Christians protest too loudly, they can end up making the mistake of calling attention to a movie that otherwise may not do very well at the box office.”
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