What's So Scary About Da Vinci?

I just started reading The DaVinci Code. I needed to see for myself what all the hubbub was about. And I must admit, so far, I haven’t read anything that strikes me as particularly blasphemous or outlandish.

As a woman, it’s not much of a stretch for me to believe that there has been an historical conspiracy over the last two millennia to demonize and subjugate the “sacred feminine.” It would not surprise me that men had invested vast fortunes, mounted armies, and manufactured convoluted intrigues spanning centuries to absorb all human power unto themselves.

I am more fortunate…more free…than my mother. And she more than her mother. But it has been a long, slow, arduous climb for the female of the species. And those of us who have achieved, in some cultures, basic human rights, are constantly reminded that those rights have been graciously bestowed upon us by our generous brethren.

Apparently, the idea of a feminine balance critical to creation is such a dangerous heresy that the 21st century Roman Catholic Church, along with Evangelical Christians, Jews, Muslims—the world's dominant patriarchal religions—still feel compelled to threaten, condemn, deny, and call fire and brimstone down upon anyone who would dare theorize upon it as publicly as Brown’s book and Howard’s film have. It seems to me that very over-reaction to a work of fiction and its cinematic rendering, lends a suspicious credibility to the “blasphemous” theories they contain. Doesn’t it just make one wonder--what are they afraid of?

Men have done a bang-up job of running the world. Territorial squabbles, weapons of mass destruction, heedless pollution, genocide, homophobia…aren’t these all simply manifestations of rampant, uncontrolled testosterone? A couple thousand years ago, the men grabbed hold of creation and wrenched it dangerously out of balance. They’re driving the planet straight to hell, but they’re in the drivers’ seat, by God, and that’s what’s important.

Yes, The Da Vinci Code is just a book. And the movie is just a movie. Fiction. Entertainment. But obviously threatening to someone. Otherwise, why all the fuss?

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