"The Golden Compass" turns out to be Not-so-Golden (in the U.S. Box Offices and in My Opinion)

Context: Some good friends of mine recommended Philip Pullman’s book The Golden Compass as a good airplane read for my Christmas trip home. Knowing nothing about the book or its author, I found a cheap paperback copy and decided to take my friends’ advice. After the three hour flight I was about halfway through the book, so I naturally decided to finish it at home. When my sister-in-law saw what I was reading she was surprised and a little upset. She told me she couldn’t believe I was reading the book because it was an atheist devil’s manifesto by an author who claimed he was trying to undo everything C.S. Lewis had done for the Christian world with his Chronicles of Narnia. I have to admit I was surprised at my sister-in-law’s vehement reaction to the book, especially since I was about three-quarters into the book and I had picked up no devilish or atheist connotations whatsoever. At the very end, I started to see how one could read into the ending as a less-than-Protestant take on an imaginary world, but I didn’t think it was grounds enough to refuse to read the book or see the movie. So, when I got back to Provo and saw The Golden Compass was playing in Orem’s dollar theater on MLK Jr. Day with a mere admission price of a non-perishable food item, I dragged my roommates along with me to the movie theater.

Summary: When Lyra Belacqua’s friends start disappearing from her home, she and her daemon, Pantalaimon (in this alternate universe, a daemon is a person’s soul which lives outside his/her body and takes the form of an animal), resolve to travel to the North where the “Gobblers” are rumored to reside with the stolen children. She has the opportunity to do so as the assistant of the deceivingly kind Mrs. Coulter. Eventually, Lyra finds out that Mrs. Coulter is actually the head of the “Gobblers” who have stolen her friends. Lyra teams up with the boat-loving Gyptians, a Texan aeronaut, a powerful witch queen, and an armored bear in order to save her friends. Along the way, she is given a unique golden compass which tells her the truth and aides her in her many adventures. Lyra makes startling discoveries about her parents and their intentions while she fulfills her promise to free her friends.

Analysis: In my opinion, all the hoopla about the movie and book being Atheist is really ungrounded. Apparently the second two books in the trilogy become more and more controversially philosophical, but as far as I’m concerned, The Golden Compass itself was not really a very blatant anti-religoius commentary. After hearing my sister-in-law’s complaint about the story, I read some articles about the movie that told me the film downplays the religious controversy found in the book. After seeing the movie myself, I’ve decided there were more religious undertones in the movie than there were in the book. Also, if I had gone to the movie without reading the book, I think I would have been a little lost in the whirlwind of characters, concepts (i.e. the whole daemon thing), and the unexplained events/appearances (i.e. the witches…where exactly did they come in to the whole thing anyway?). In all fairness, if I sat down and read the book again, I would probably pick out more religious commentary, but isn’t there something to be said for the fact that I didn’t notice much the first time through even though I've been constantly trained to analyze literature for the past three years of my life as an English major? Like so many stories, I think The Golden Compass has fallen victim to overzealous religious enthusiasts who like to condemn any sort of fantasy/adventure story that makes the tiniest commentary about their motives and views (case in point: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The DaVinci Code). Word has it that the film did three times as well in foreign box offices as it did here in the U.S. I whole-heartedly congratulate foreign movie-goers for refusing to be taken in by overzealous critics who know little or nothing about the text/movie they are talking about and probably haven’t even read/seen it. To Americans: will we ever learn to get past the rumor mill and think for ourselves? Overall, I give the movie about two and a half stars (out of five). It was worth it to see, but I’m glad I waited for it to come to the dollar theater.

Educational Value: I’m sure The Golden Compass as a movie and as a book will always be a controversial tool when it comes to educating students in the classroom. Having said that, I think the book/movie can be used as a good example in a discussion about censorship. To me, the whole Golden Compass controversy is a perfect introduction to a discussion about choosing whether to take somebody else’s opinion about a piece of media, or to experience the piece yourself and form your own opinions.