The Golden Compass
Jun 7th, 2008 by admin
Women! Rent and watch “The Golden Compass.” The heroine of this story is Lyra, a girl of 12 or 13. She is the girl child who, according to the prophesies of the witches, would emerge as a leader during a time when the universe stands at the brink of war. She is also the one to whom the last “aleithiometer” (”golden compass”) on earth is to be given. The aleithiometer tells “the truth” as against “the Magisterium,” theocratic dictators who rule the universe, killing and casting out ”heretics” and “apostates,” and who teach and enforce authority and obedience to authority as core religious absolutes.
This is not a perfect movie, no movie is perfect, but some of the imagery in this movie, especially, will take your breath away and bring tears of recognition and hope to your eyes. Although there are battle scenes in this movie, there is no blood.
Just see it.
Heart
Central to this movie is overcoming fear, mastering fear, having courage. Lyra is horrifyingly courageous!
I have learned in my life that the most brutal, bullying, violent people in the world are also those possessed of the least courage, people who, when you get right down to it, are afraid of everything and everybody.
Agreed, Heart, great pro-womankind imagery, and the shero witch of your photo (including her cleavage, “more than Hillary’s, oh, no” go the pundits) is an inspiration equal to Lyra.
If I recall the subtext to the book correctly, the witches never initiated violence but took flight with bows and arrows only as self-defense. And, unlike real life where we have greater cosmic power to invoke, the “Golden Compass” — like any fantasy written and conceived in the male “creative womb” to garner the all-competitive dollar — includes violence as entertainment.
It speaks to global misogyny, overtly practiced by men and internalized by women, that the “Golden Compass” will not be followed, as was “Lord of the Rings,” by the rest of the trilogy. Lyra as cast for the movie is a more believable girl shero than Harry Potter as movie-cast, but our internalized anti-female social values affect movie making and movie attendance just as they affect presidential nominating campaigns. It was predictable that the “Golden Compass” would lead to a relatively low USA box office return on the budget, such that the second and third books of this trilogy are not greenlighted for production.
Heart’s right: rent the movie. The CGI for the “daemons” alone is worth the rental price. Then make up your own stories for how Lyra and the witches change the world.
Judy,
Another comment par excellence ! Thank you.
And Heart, yes, I watched this video and was floored to find a young female character in the MSM that I could never have imagined would be allowed.
It got to the point where I had to watch it with the sound off. Lyra’s character shone through more brilliantly that way, without all the aggravation of the booming, snarling male voices.
Well, after reading this, I might have to watch it now! I must say I avoided it at the cinema as I have read the book and thought the film would be your typical Hollywood blockbuster shameless cash-in disappointment - but you women have made me think I might have missed something, so I’ll have to find a copy now!
xx
Mary Sunshine, I greatly appreciate your words, as well. Connecting at the overall about why the “Golden Compass” was passed over by the man-stream manipulators, I loved recently when you commented about a man wanting access to women’s space: “Being decent doesn’t make him female, and doesn’t justify the loss of all-female energy that will occur as soon as we “welcome” him.”
Because society is globally structured as patriarchy, women-only space remains vitally important to our ability to “get it” that the patriarchy is unrelenting in its deception and hypocrisy, from movie marketing to campaign promises.
This paragraph includes a movie spoiler: The “Golden Compass,” while not a women-only movie, overtly featured a girl shero, a witch shero (oh, did she fly), and a patriarchal token (played by Nicole Kidman) whose character evolves so that mother-love proves strong enough to save the girl shero from a half-life.
The “Golden Compass” even hints that patriarchy historically arose through violent trauma by the worst of men against womankind and children. It leaves out the part that patriarchy solidified its hierarchy through men carving out men-only space to erase clan motherhood (all-male military regiments before “equity” feminism’s tokenism, men’s eating clubs, men’s religious leadership and all-male prayer groups, as just a few examples).
The truth about men-only and women-only space is never told by those who seek to deny women-born women the opportunity to congregate so that we might liberate our souls from patriarchal abuse. The noise, and sound bites, of prevailing dominator culture are so great, women-only space may the only way some women can break free. So of course, the fight against women’s space has always been waged by those born with too much testosterone.
Space-intruders conscript those feminists for their cause who cannot overcome the whispers of misogyny masking womankind’s necessary self-interest. It is not the fault of these token feminists. But without the opportunity to experience wimmins’ land first hand, most women may never know how duped by patriarchy they have been.
Second-wave feminists who left the brothers’ social revolutions of the 1960’s saw the futility of reform within liberal patriarchy by years of co-ed-space experience with so-called revolutionaries interested in changing male leadership only, while women remain breeders, cu$#s and coffee-getters. But I didn’t know about the second-wave feminists’ lived experiences until several years ago, because the books delineating their experiences are virtually buried by “equity” feminism’s post-modernist misogyny, and never mentioned by the man-stream.
I did not “get it” (about what will and will not work to free womankind) until I spent some quiet time with nature (and, occasionally, other wimmin) on wimmins’ land where men were not invited. Even there, after my fourth time-transcendent day on the undeveloped land in women-only space, men mounted repetitive flyovers by helicopter on the night of the full-moon rise. Who can prove it is harassment, or even whose non-logo-bearing helicopter it was? And even if you had admissible evidence and knew where to lodge a complaint, if any judicial body even existed to protect against repetitive helicopter flyovers, who would have the money to mount the legal fight? Also, wimmins’ land residents in the 21st century tend to keep a low profile in hopes of avoiding the many legal weapons like tax-rate increase, zoning change and building-permit-denial that patriarchy provides against them.
I honor that all of us of authentic good will have our own ways of working within the Overarching Way of the Book of Women’s Liberation. I enjoy that you, Mary Sunshine, and I seem so often to be on the same page. Bravo.
I honestly tried to watch it but kept falling asleep… on your recommendation I will give it another chance.
Thanks for the suggestion, Heart… I’m always in need of female-friendly viewing.
I don’t want to quash the party here, but, well, I still think this movie has a lot of problems. I completely understand why women are enthusiastic about this movie - we’re so used to such utterly terrible portrayals of women, that whenever something comes along that is even marginally better, it’s easy to get excited.
I would not call this movie feminist, though, and I don’t believe it promotes feminist, woman-centred or woman-friendly values. Yes, there’s a token girl in the lead, but in everything she does, she is guided by men, and she is ultimately caught up in fighting a war that is being waged between different groups of men. Women have more or less nothing to do with it, except, of course, that the ultimate evil character who okays the torture of children is a woman. Very realistic, that.
I do find the conception of the witches interesting, but they are rather irrelevant to the film overall - you hardly know or find out anything about them.
I have to disagree that there is any complexity in how Mrs Coulter is portrayed, Judy…I think you’re meant to see her as evil, pure and simple. And let’s not forget that Lyra rejects her mother and runs off to rescue her father at the end of the film..that says it all, really.
Also, the books by Phillip Pullman are incredibly woman-hating, and I really am baffled by how many feminist women appear to love the series.
For good, woman-centred fantasy I would recommend the books of Isobelle Carmody and Gael Baudino. Also the Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix. All way, way better than Pullman in my opinion.
Dissenter, I do agree that there are still problems with Pullman’s trilogy, but I don’t find it hard to believe that feminist women love the books– after all, Lyra is a strong female protagonist, and her strength is not portrayed as male-like: on the contrary, she is strong because she represents a strong female archetype. Her role in the three novels– the her quest– is to reconfigure the Fall of Genesis so that Eve’s role becomes something positive for humanity; Eve is someone who should be celebrated as the bringer of wisdom, rather than denigrated as the bringer of sin; in short, Eve cannot be used to keep women down. And furthermore, Lyra’s primary role model in taking on this role is another woman– an older woman who lives a rich and fulfilling life, without being attached to a man. The novel ends with Lyra intending to accept a position at a girls’ school, where she will continue to grow under the guidance of other women.
Again, I do realise that the novels are not perfect in their portrayals of women– but I do think that there are a lot of good reasons that feminist women find themselves drawn to this trilogy.
Ugh, there were some really nice comments posted here that were apparently lost in moving my blog to a new server. DANG. I’m so sorry to everybody whose posts are just gone, including ME! Dangit.
Dissenter, I will have to dissent. :) I agree that this isn’t a perfect movie– as I said, there are things I didn’t like about it. One thing in particular, I didn’t like the way the “Samoyeds” (I think it was), who looked like indigenous people, were portrayed as the most warrior-like in a less civilized way than any of the other people groups, including the Ice Bears. I didn’t like how universally white the cast was either.
But my take on it was, this was a portrayal *of* a universe designed and controlled by men. It was men who controlled the universe and men who made the wars, bringing all of sentient life to the point of destruction. That was the whole point, as I read the movie. Into this patriarchal, destructive world men built, a girl child, who had been prophesied by women– witches — emerged as the central figure. I agree that we didn’t learn much about the witches, but my take on that was that we would learn more as the story unfolded in upcoming sequels.
I so disagree that everything Lyra did was guided by men! She acted so on her own, without help, in the most dramatic moments of the film. To me the men mostly served as escorts, protectors and guides– it was Lyra who was the brains of everything. She came up with the plan to trick the illegitimate Ice Bear King (and what a creative plan, and it worked!). She also, completely on her own, wreaked havoc in the operating room where the lives and souls of children were being destroyed. She repeatedly walked fearlessly right up to the most intimidating characters– not just the Ice Bears but the Northern people who had snarling wolves on leashes. She defied every power that be that there was to defy. She repeatedly struck out on her own– left the school, rode the Ice Bear North to rescue the children, and at the end, took off with the orphan boy. One of the things I liked most about this movie was Lyra’s independence and the way she got herself out of difficulties and masterminded various plans, worked deals, to do what she needed to do– really creative deals in some instances.
Of course I liked it that she was the only person in the movie who could read the aleithiometer.
I didn’t get that Mrs. Coulter was pure evil– I read her as a “token torturer,” the epitome of Mary Daly’s “painted bird,” highly conflicted and tormented, vacillating between living up to the terms of the deal she cut with the male powers that be in the universe and with her love for Lyra. Her conflictedness seemed especially evident to me in the scene where she slaps her own Daemon, then comforts the Daemon the way tormented, conflicted, guilty persons, tend to do. The Daemon, after all, was part of her– in slapping the Daemon, she was striking out at herself. I thought Mrs. Coulter was an intriguing figure, really.
I didn’t at all get it that Lyra was going to rescue her father– I got it that she was going to rescue the world, and to do that, she had to warn her father that the Magisteria was on his trail. It was clear she was in awe of her father’s brilliance as a scientist– but again, this was a patriarchal, male world she was inhabiting, and she would be the one to save it, including saving her father. I didn’t see Lyra as acting out of loyalty to either of her parents– she didn’t at all seem to me to be that kind of a figure, nurturing and caring in stereotyped ways, not any kind of dutiful daughter. I saw her as acting out of a determination to do what was right and true in a universe gone mad with untruth and destruction. The only time I saw her act in a way that seemed nurturing in more stereotypical ways was toward the Ice Bear, Iorek.
However, if I’d read the books and found them to be misogynist and woman-hating, I might have viewed this film differently. I absolutely loved the book Practical Magic and found it entirely woman-centered, and was *so* disappointed with how superficial and non woman-centered the movie was! And with the fact that this movie was a comedy when the book was centrally about women’s response to battering and abuse.
Since I have not read the books but just saw the movie, I’m not bringing anything to the watching but my own eyes, ears.
Beppie, I’ve only read the first book of the trilogy, but I was very unimpressed by it, and I’ve been told that the 2nd and 3rd books get even worse. I still don’t get why women like these books. I have read so many books - including fantasy - that far outstrip Northern Lights, both in terms of woman-centredness and just in terms of better writing, plot development and world building.
Heart - we’re going to have to agree to disagree on the film. I did find that Lyra was stronger and more independent in the film than she was in the book, but I really didn’t get all of these feminist messages that everyone else seems to be getting from the film and the books. To be honest, I think women are forcibly reading feminism into these texts because they want to believe that it’s there. Probably everyone will disagree with me on that, and tell me I’m being condescending, but I don’t really care.
Perhaps I should clarify where I’m coming from with my opinion on this. I’ve been involved in literary criticism in Australia for about five or six years now. This means that I have advantages that a lot of other women don’t - I have access to all sorts of wonderful obscure books and literary commentary that isn’t available in the mainstream, and I have the luxury of doing nothing with my time but sitting around reading, writing and thinking about books.
As you’d expect, literary criticism, though not as bad as it used to be, is hardly a bastion of feminist knowledge, and in my time, I’ve heard it argued that all sorts of woman-hating novels are ‘feminist’ using the most torturous sort of logic imagined. And yes, that is irritating, and I call it out when I can, but I can deal with it, because that is more or less what you’d expect from the woman-hating mainstream. But when I come to radical feminist spaces and hear exactly the same sort of arguments being used in the defense of malestream literature and pop-culture, I really just sometimes…despair, to be honest. To me, it’s the literary eqivalent of a pro-porn argument, and just as we’re never going to have a feminist revolution as long as pornography defines sexuality, we’re never going to have one as long as malestream creativity defines what feminism is to both mainstream and radical feminist women.
Heart, I’m not trying to single you out. You have blogged many, many times about radical creative women, and I know you have a deep commitment to women’s creativity. I understand liking The Golden Compass, I quite enjoyed the movie myself, but I don’t understand calling it feminist. If The Golden Compass is feminism, there where does that leave - to pull one random example off my shelf - women like Christine de Pizan, who in 1405 wrote a book called The Book of the City of Ladies, in which she imagines building a woman-only city in which women will be able to pursue the ideals of knowledge and truth away from the lies and attacks of men.
Just as pornography does not equal sexual liberation, so one female protagonist does not equal a feminist revolution.
Hey, Dissenter, I don’t know that I called the movie “feminist.” Maybe I did but I sort of don’t think I did. I don’t know what “feminist” means anymore, for one thing! I think what I said about the movie was that the imagery, some of it, was breathtaking and some would bring tears to women’s eyes. I think the movie does that. I know it does– it did for me.
I haven’t read the book(s) and probably won’t, especially knowing they are misogynist/sexist in your and others’ educated opinion. I think that the film is not the same as the book. My appreciating the film does not equal my endorsement of the book as feminist, and my appreciation of the film has nothing to do with any sort of literary criticism, including of the book.
People create, they make art, they send it into the world, it takes on a life of its own. We all bring ourselves to the viewing and appreciation of any film or book or poem or work of art. We bring our backgrounds, our herstories, all of the books we’ve ever read, all of the studies we’ve done, all of the history we know, our lived experiences with us when we watch or read or listen. It’s not only about what the author or the poet or the artist or the filmmaker did– it’s also about those of us engaging with the work they have created. A woman-centered woman, watching that movie (without having read the book ahead of time) is going to see things others won’t see. A witch watching the movie is going to see things others don’t (and it will be okay that there isn’t much about the witches specifically in the movie, because she brings her history and knowledge as a witch to the watching). A mother, especially of a a daughter Lyra’s age, but of daughters period, will bring her experience as a mother to the watching of the movie. A mother’s experiences will also factor in to how she views Mrs. Coulter. A woman’s fundamentalist background will factor in to how she understands the beliefs/behaviors/ideologies of the Magisteria.
It doesn’t make much sense to me to reject the movie because the book, which I’ve never read, is said by feminists to be misogynist. I think the movie stands on its own and can be evaluated on its own merits. Having said that, now that I know that the book is sexist/misogynist, when I talk about the movie with others, I’ll say, “I’ve heard, though, that the book is sexist and misogynist, and I didn’t read the book, so it didn’t figure in to my experience of the movie.” I can see why it bothers you that some of us here appreciated the movie as feminists– you don’t want that particular author getting that or any feminist cred at all! But again, appreciating the movie is one thing; the book is something else again.
My appreciation of the movie was not centered in the fact that it had ”one female protagonist” nor did I think the movie was about feminist revolution. (Although I thought the actress who played Lyra was magnificent). My own appreciation had more to do with women-centered spirituality — goddess spirituality/wicca/ecofeminism — in that the imagery in the movie reflected, at times, these sensibilities. I do believe woman-centered spirituality is necessary to feminist revolution — I don’t think we’re going to get there without it, and I think we are not there because so many women reject it — but I don’t think it *is* feminist revolution.
So those are some thoughts.
So far as the men in the movie, while I didn’t turn off the sound like Mary Sunshine did (!), I pretty much ignored the men. I found them unnecessary, irritating and a diversion to the story, needed, I keow, in order for the movie to succeed at the box office (though it didn’t in the U.S.), and essential to the plot, but absolutely unnecessary to my own viewing and in the way so far as my appreciation of the film.
Yes Heart, I know that saying or not saying something is “feminist” gets confusing, when there is such contention about what feminism means. On my blog, I’ve developed a set of criteria I use in order to asses whether a movie, book or other creative text is what I consider to be feminist, and what I think feminism is with regards to literature, so when I am talking about feminism in relation to literature, I am basically referring to my own definition that I’ve developed on my blog. And I can understand saying this movie has some positives for women does not equal saying the film is feminist, and I respect that. Perhaps I should have been clearer that my comment was about a wider frustration I have about women defending malestream creativity as feminist, which I think is relevant since many women have made that argument in relation to this film and the Pullman books.
I really appreciate you taking on board that I have doubts about the books, but, on the other hand, I think I’m in a serious minority of women who don’t think the books are feminist.
On my own blog, I’ve deliberately avoided writing on The Golden Compass because I didn’t want to open a can of worms, but I think I will write a post now…partly to critique in more detail what I see as the problems of the film, but I’d also like to highlight why I think the movie isn’t woman-centred by comparing certain aspects of it to fantasy novels I’ve read that, in my opinion, are woman centred. Particularly I want to talk about the portrayals of relationships between women and the portrayal of women’s culture.
And I agree with you about the importance of women’s spirituality…I think for me, creativity and spirituality are very closely connected.
Heart said, “I don’t know what “feminist” means anymore, for one thing!”
Me neither! I’ve been struggling with this for a while now, the word has become so generalised and used by people who so clearly are not woman-centred, or even interested in equality, never mind liberation. I’ve sort of decided I’m not a feminist anymore, and I may give up on “labels” altogether. I know who I am, but if saying I’m a “feminist” lumps me in with a bunch of people who hold opposing views to mine, and who’s views I find misogynistic, it makes the word pretty meaningless doesn’t it?
Sorry, that’s all a bit off topic! xx
Hi Debs,
How about “anti-misogynistic” ? And “anti-misogynist”?
Sure, they could then say “oh, I’m anti-misandrist and anti-misogynistic” but the phrase post-anti-misandry-and-anti-misogyny doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
Neither does “I’m not an anti-misogynist, but ….”
Aha! We’ve got ‘em.
See, we never “let” them hijack “feminism” - they just did. Because the word is too vague. It was just totally easy to do.
Just as the word “lesbian” was totally easy to hijack by the BeeDeeEssEmm ghouls. If lesbians were called “anti-sadomasochists who don’t fuck men”, I’d still call myself one.
Anything short of total clarity will be hijacked within a heartbeat.
Oops … lets put some brackets in there:
post-(anti-misandry-and-anti-misogyny) which parses out to post-misandry and post-misogyny when brackets are removed.
Mathematical truth is a lot harder to hijack than are the words for female reality.
first–:), great movie isn’t it Heart…
now, in regards to the author of the books–I’ll have to read them first, before I come to decision there,
HOWEVER…
as to the portrayal of the Magistrate/and Mrs. Coulter as being misogynist–
why? In EVERY single FASCIST movement there has been Those women who are not only a part of, but are Rulers or in high positions in, who yes, are sadists and who are just as horrible to children and so forth, as men are,
Women are human beings…o.k., no matter what influences they are Still capable of choice as human agents…by portraying women as just these angelic beings who only do ‘bad’ because men make them do it, really plays into the hands of Patriarchy and misogyny, because lets not forget, Misogyny, while portraying women as ‘evil’, the belief is that women are not just evil–but that they aren’t really ‘human’, or that they are Less than, inferior to men, INCLUDING, in the ability to make their own decisions, as agents of choice…why misogyny is rigid on protectionism,
there are TWO branches of misogyny as well–the one, that is, women are evil and can’t be helped, the other, women are ’suseptable’ (sic) to evil because they are WEAK AND INFERIOR to men, a.k.a. your Christian-Judeo ethic,
which is why, in many earlier Christian-Judeo societies, MEN, were often times fined and forced to pay for the crimes of their ‘wives’ [early America this was law], because, women were not [to them] capable of being bad on their own, it had to be the husband’s or father’s lack of control and bad influence, etc., women were just believed to be not only mentally weak, but Morally weak, why they had to be ‘controlled’.
So, my point is, misogyny manifests not always the same…and there IS that part of misogyny that does say, women aren’t capable of being evil on their own, though they are from Eve, but they are ‘tempted and because they are so weak…they are unlike men, who are strong, mentally capable, to avoid falling into temptation, etc. etc., and by this notion that any portrayal of women who yes, choose evil, as just misogynist–
I think when we do that, its part of that whole ‘women are incapable of doing evil as agents ON THE MENTAL LEVEL equal to that of men, because, they are ‘weak’ and so forth,
Women, are JUST as capable of evil as men are because like men, they are CAPABLE OF CHOOSING–AS HUMAN AGENTS, THEY CAN THINK, QUESTION, WANT POWER, just as much as any man can…
NOT to say there isn’t those constructs, but even with all the constructs–WOMEN STILL HAVE BRAINS…hell, look at today,
even with KNOWLEDGE OF CONSTRUCTS AND OPPRESSION, WE SEE WOMEN, WHO KNOW DAMN WELL ALL THAT WE KNOW, BUT WHO ‘CHOOSE’ TO BE A PART OF THAT OPPRESSOR STATUS BECAUSE THEY WANT THAT POWER…and they are just as SADIST as the men out there,
not because they are weak and incapable of knowing, because they aren’t at the level mentally as men are, no…so, we Really need to stop putting women on this angelic pedestal in this way that, says,, well, women are not impure like men and if they do evil/impure things its because patriarchy made them do it—its the same thing–the devil, the snake made them do it…because they are ‘inferior’ to men,
and it IS that same thinking, that is, yes, misogynist.
So, yes, Mrs. Coulter, CHOSE to be evil, and was evil to children, NOT because she was controlled by men or patriarchy, NOT EVEN BECAUSE SHE REALLY BELIEVED ALL THAT NONSENSE OF ‘THE NEED TO KEEP THOSE FROM KNOWING ABOUT DUST–GOOD AND EVIL,’,
NO, HER REASON, BECAUSE SHE WANTED POWER–NOT JUST OVER THEM/CHILDREN/HER WORLD–BUT THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE…
though YES—she WAS a tool of the Magistrate-patriarchy, and of course, she was effected by it [e.g., her being forced to give up child, etc, she was deviant, obviously, so yes, she was a victim in that way of the patriarchy] BUT, SHE PLAYED IT..
not to overthrow it, but BECAUSE SHE USED IT FOR HER OWN AMBITION…
like many, women have done, in fascism and in capitalism and in our world today–including yes, in our election…
so, lets not forget, there are women, that USE patriarchy TO THEIR ADVANTAGE…
now–what is Really important in the message of this movie, though the entire novels were around the role of RELIGIOUS FASCISM, e.g. esp Catholicism, why there was the Controversy towards that book, esp by Catholic church, but,
near the end, remember, the Revolution, is not just for them, BUT TO SAVE THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE from becoming nothing but SLAVES,
INCAPABLE OF, ‘DECISION’….
very important there, because this is EXACTLY how religion is being used today. Whether some want to see it or not…and the working [by both right/left and far left especially] TO FORM ONE,
MAGISTRATE–RELIGIOUS HEGEMONY–
RENDERING WORLD CITIZENS, INCAPABLE, OF
DECISION.
and the Symbolism of the Witch, in that story [movie], represents not only witches, but, Deviance, Rebellion, Resistance,
the Women–who separated, but observed, all that time–waiting, just waiting, for the prophecy to be fulfilled, in the girl, with the measure of TRUTH–SEEKING OF TRUTH,
which, RADICAL means just that, in regards to turning over every stone, to seek out, truth, [one meaning], or, to NOT ACCEPT THE TRUTHS OR ASSERTIONS GIVEN THAT ARE ACCEPTED BY ALL,
it isn’t by chance, that the uncle–a MAN OF HIGHER EDUCATION, mind you, and of biblioagraphy (sic–books/learning/exploriing) was targeted for assassination because he Deviated from,
that ‘illusion of knowledge but that is restrained and controlled none other than by the magistrate], that institution of INDOCTRINATION OF THE MINDS OF THE MASSES,
in the illusion of Freedom, to keep the chains or the fence, around every citizen. But too-how the magistrate, USED the desire to SEEK KNOWLEDGE for their own,
FASCIST ADVANTAGE.
How better to learn and master the art of mind control that to do it none other than by APPEARING LIBERAL AND FREE?
INCAPABLE OF DECISION…remove the soul,
separate the very essence of the human, that conflicting Voice, by violent separation, terror and fear…
and those who do not comply or who try to revolt–
remove them, out of the way of the Fascist Progress, e.g. the Sub-cultures/groups of RESISTANCE in the film/book…
the Message in that movie, has More powerful meaning today, than many movies, and it is So similar, to the world today, not under Catholicism, not under Christianity anymore…
though they are part of, and not even religion in itself–RELIGION IS JUST THE ‘TOOL’, the ‘OPIATE’, to indoctrinate and use guilt and force,
AND THAT HATES, WOMEN ESPECIALLY–THE WITCH,
to form a world,
INCAPABLE OF DECISION…
either through subtle brainwashing/or separation, even violently using religious Terror/AND, GET THIS–IN THAT MOVIE–SCIENTIFIC TERROR/VIA ALSO, THE CAMPS,
notice the Symbolism in the using of Russian type of Guards around the children’s compound,
ALL WITH THE SAME, EXACT SOUL–THOSE DOGS…
communist fascism seriously, all under
RELIGION.
or, socialist fascism, either way, but it wasn’t a Capitalist INDIVIDUALISM, thats for sure…
so, the film /book also brings into the light the relevance of Individualism [that DEVIANCE] to that of GROUP ALL OF ONE MIND–SOULS THAT ARE UNDER THE ABSOLUTE CONTROL
OF BOTH
RELIGION
MAGISTRATE [POLITICAL]
AND
SCIENCE.
We had BETTER PAY ATTENTION,
because WE ARE THAT UNIVERSE….AND THE MAGISTRATE–IS DOING EXACTLY THAT–ON A GLOBAL LEVEL–THE UNIVERSE,
TODAY.
ITS NOT JUST
SCIENCE FICTION, ANYMORE…
Tasha
Golden Compas was a delight because of it’s imaginative imagry, and the very rare appearance of a girl heroine. The scenes with the girl and the Ice Bears are well worth the ticket price.
I want to be an ice bear when I grow up!
What a welcome relief from the never ending stream of “boy genius” movies, and Harry Potter this or that!