Evolution: Not Fit for General Audiences

By Lisa Fary

Creation, the movie that opened the Toronto Film Festival, must show Charles Darwin performing experiments on live children, snorting coke off the taut bellies of slaves, and engaging in homosexual acts. The movie can’t get a U.S. distributor, so it must show some pretty wretched stuff. Stuff much worse than typical Hollywood fare.

Charles Darwin’s great crime, the reason he can’t be shown in the United States is. . . science. SCIENCE!

All over the internet, I’m reading about how Christians are blocking this movie. Here are two examples:

• “New Charles Darwin film is ‘too controversial for religious American audiences”
• “‘Creation producer says US distributors find evolution too controversial”

There are some others, all of which rehash the same quotes from the Christian review site, Movieguide.org regarding Charles Darwin and from producer Jeremy Thomas trying to make sense of why Creation has been picked up in numerous other countries, and not the United States:

‘It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There’s still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It’s quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.”

Just going with what’s been reported, it sure sounds like some shadowy Christian group is blocking the release of Creation in the US.

I call shenanigans! for the following reasons:

Movieguide.org’s comments are taken out of context and, while about Darwin, they are not related to Creation. The quote being bandied about, which calls Darwin “a racist, a bigot and 1800′s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder,” is taken from a recent review of a self-published book called Darwin’s Racists. While that’s an example of what’s likely to be said about Creation’s Darwin by that wing, no one has actually said it about this particular movie, yet.

Which brings me to my next reason. . .

No one has claimed credit. This kind of blockage would have to be backed by an organized group rather than the mere idea that people might be upset. If one group, or even a few working together, managed to successfully block the US distribution of a Darwin biopic, there would be news releases boasting a victory in the fight. We haven’t seen a single one of these, yet.

Movie studios don’t give a damn about offending and dividing. Have you ever seen a Michael Moore documentary? Conservatives lose their guano over Moore’s movies every single time without effecting distribution. Have you seen The Passion of the Christ? Many groups found it to be horrifically anti-Semitic and it was widely distributed.

I, however, haven’t seen it. You know why? Because The Passion of the Christ was aimed squarely at those who believed in the biblical scripture and I’m not that kind of believer. Did I begrudge believers their desire to see The Passion of the Christ and love it? Of course not. It’s an effing movie.

I’d much rather watch Jesus Christ Superstar than The Passion of the Christ anyway purely out of personal preference. Musicals are fun.

Then again, seeing a long-haired hottie like Jim Caviezel get gruesomely crucified is far more exciting to American audiences than seeing pasty, faux-balding Paul Bettany mulling over science. Americans go for blood, gore, and violence (as evidenced by the success of our serial slasher series’).

Back to my point.

Distributors are going to start having a social conscience now? After bringing in all those Saw movies? Really?

The intolerant wings of any religion or other group can always be counted on to complain about something, but let’s wait until real hubbub starts before throwing stones. So far, this sounds more like an attempt to generate buzz, which it certainly has.

Unless, of course, there really is a shadowy group preventing Creation from coming to US theaters, even in limited release. In which case, why block this film when Uwe Boll is out there with another BloodRayne sequel?

Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She’s angry that it’s almost 2010 and she still doesn’t have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram.

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• How much lower can we get as a Nation? We continue to make war, long after other nations have withdrawn. We have the worst health care system of the industrialized nations and we are so backwards that a film about the life of Charles Darwin is too contr (iflizwerequeen.com)

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