movie news ; God Bless IMAX

As a resident of the American South for 27 out of the 28 years of my life and a childhood "Dukes of Hazzard" fan, let me start this by saying the following: I'm really sick of us Southerners making ourselves look like ass-clowns. Get it together people. For every episode of "Boston Legal" that portrays us all as gun-toting, mustache twirling, murdering dim-wits, there's a real life story like this one that makes us every bit as stupid as James Spader portrays us. Maybe it's time I moved up north.

Here's the long and short of it: IMAX theaters in several southern cities (Texas is listed specifically, so no doubt this includes my IMAX theater here in Dallas.) have opted not to show a film on volcanoes on the grounds that it references the theory of evolution. Cited are concerns that movie-goers might be offended, or worse still actually learn something. The South's education reputation didn't occur by accident after all.

Now granted, I don't spend a lot of time watching The Discovery Channel, but when was the last time you saw a nature program that didn't reference evolution? They're absolutely RIFE with it, perhaps because they're put together by smart people known as "scientists" instead of evangelical, money-hungry preachers. Scientists you see are this weird cult of folks who worship this guy named Einstein and believe in crazy things like scientific method as a way for unraveling the mysteries of the Earth. They also feel pretty confident that we all got here by a process known as evolution. Fun fact… the Pope agrees.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I believe on the subject, but that's irrelevant to the discussion. Whether evolution is the real deal or not, this is a move that's completely out of wack. I support the rights of these individual theater owners to run whichever movies they want. I believe in that, it's a private business and they're in it to make money. Fine. But has the Bible belt really become so desperately oppressive that legitimate science no longer has a place in movie theaters? That's a frightening thought. It stinks of knee-jerk reaction. Are people actually out there protesting this? I know a lot of fundamentalist creationists (I do after all live in Texas) and they spend more time watching the Discovery Channel than anyone I know (Animals screwing is less morally offensive than people). They're used to wading through evolution references… why would it suddenly bother them? It's as if electing a president on moral grounds has suddenly empowered an entire small subset of psychotically religious people to go out and start forcing their beliefs on the rest of the populace… or has it? At least that seems like what these theater owners are afraid of. To me, the fear seems unfounded.

The worst thing about this is the message it sends to the folks making these sorts of movies. If you want your movie shown, leave out anything that isn't in the Bible. Maybe work in some references to God. Throw in A few shots of a bearded guy shooting stars out of his ass. Better make that beard thicker, wouldn't want him to be confused as female. Alanis Morrisette is right out. Maybe the Lucas-like fellow could even ask to borrow a starship. God does that sort of thing you know.

This mess reflects poorly on normal, mainstream Christians, and as usual reflects poorly on the justifiably maligned Deep South. We deserve the stereotypes. Might as well kick back in your rocking chair and suck on a corn-cob pipe brothers. Religion is well and good but please, keep it to yourself. You're making the whole region look like bullshit. God bless Texas?

by Joshua Tyler