Inherit The Ignorance

To this I would only add: “Inherit The Wind” took the story of the Scopes Monkey Trial and turned it into an allegory of McCarthyism. But just as people thought Jonathan Swift was the narrator of “A Modest Proposal,” people come away from the movie to this day thinking it is a docudrama at least. It is no more an account of the Scopes Monkey Trial than “Close Encounters” was a documentary about flying saucers.🛸 

And yes, Hollywood likes the Roman Catholic Church because it has history, mystery, and knows how to use spectacle. As a practicing liturgist myself once upon a time, I say that with admiration. A woman determined to drive me from my last pulpit did tell me she admired my Easter Vigil variant for Easter Sunday liturgy. I didn’t do it for showmanship but for doxological and liturgical (the “work of the people “) purposes. A little dramaturgy is a good thing. Jesus’ annunciation; Moses stop Sinai conversing with God; Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne room (which has influenced Christian worship since Constantine’s day); Ezekiel watching the throne-chariot of God arising from the Temple. Theophany has its purpose. I recognize the power of Roman pomp, and the virtue of it. 

Hollywood, of course, just likes the spectacle.

(The story of the rogue Cardinal crashing the conclave reminds of a Harlan Ellison anecdote he told. He was a writer on a TV show (or was it a movie?) involving high drama on a submarine. Halfway through the work an executive decided the climax needed punching up, so the antagonist would be revealed to have been in disguise the whole time! (And thus revealed as the true antagonist. A Hollywood trope as well worn as the “eternal triangle.”) Ellison very reasonably (for Ellison) pointed out that the people fooled by this disguise (IIRC, “she” was revealed to be a “he”) had been in close quarters in a submarine yet had never noticed this disguise? He said he wouldn’t do it. 

The executive replied: “Oh, you’ll do it. Writers are toadies.” And Ellison leapt across the table at his throat. He was off the film almost immediately.)