This post inaugurates a new category on my futuristguy blog: Media Systems. This will likely contain at least reviews of culturally important books, films, games, multimedia discs, and other related concrete media, such as trading card sets, press kits, promotional posters, etc. This is systems work. It’s more three-dimensional than we’re used to – so don’t expect the usual. And here we go.

What do you get when you cross a paradigm/cultural-systems-interpreter-polymath with a movie review?

A blog post that is 1,721 words, plus a few hundred more, give or take, for additional glossary definitions at the end. Or maybe that many words, in each of five separate posts plus glosses …

We shall see what it turns out to be, as I do hope to blog a series on The Golden Compass, with multiple perspectives, questions, and resources. I’ll let you know up front. I take films like this and The DaVinci Code and Dogma seriously. I’m a culturologist, so I’m intrigued enough to study cultural phenomena and track how they influence our civilizations over time. I’m also an advocate of all disciples being “Bereans” (see Acts 17:11) and checking things out for themselves. And I do plan to go to the movie premiere this Friday, December 7, and shhhhh! Don’t tell manyone, but I got in on a special sneak preview Saturday, December 1! Initial review forthcoming at a blog near you!

SYSTEMIC REVIEWS

Reviewing a movie is always a complex task for me, especially when it involves an adaptation from critically acclaimed books. Not only that, but it’s not easy to navigate the many dimensions involved in something like Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass – makes me feel like a human MRI machine, trying to scan the subject from multiple vantage points to give as much of a three-dimensional impression as possible: theological, philosophical, sociological, literary criticism, film studies, concrete media systems like TGC action figures, TGC games, TGC posters and toy alethiometers and magnets and dominoes and movie tie-in books and stuffed bears in armor and etc.

Plus, my brain is barraged with questions on the societal situation surrounding this first movie from Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I simply cannot disentangle the books from the movie(s), or the author’s intentions from my own perspectives, or the literary criticisms from the cultural controversies. This is postmodernity, after all, and aren’t the messenger, message, receiver/interpreter, and interpretation/application all “supposed” to be messed together?

Anyway, with that initial muddling of material, onward I go with the interweaving of my story with the books, working my way toward my story with the movie.

THE TRILOGY

Until my mid-40s, I led a sheltered life literarily. I mostly read non-fiction. Weird, huh? I never spent much time in books of fantasy, sci-fi/space opera, speculative fiction – not even “the classics.” But viewing The Fellowship of the Ring movie changed all that. I rushed right out and sped right through Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Followed by finishing the entire Dune series of nine books plus nine prequels, and then there were novels by Jane Austen, Madeleine L’Engle, and Dan Brown. And for heaven’s sake, why didn’t I take friends’ advice sooner and read Ender’s Game?!

When I heard that His Dark Materials would soon be translated to film, I decided that would be my summertime leisure reading. I needed a new system to absorb, in part to help squeeze out all the now-unnecessary details from my three former part-time jobs that all ended in May. (I do that, in case you did not know. Soak in details from multiple sources and perspectives, ponder it with a million-zillion questions, and then reconfigure all my observations and thoughts and conclusions into some kind of complex system that makes sense to me, even if I never talk about it to anyone else. I’m a linguist at heart, and it’s like writing a dictionary and grammar for a new language. I love the analytic creativity and elegant patternivity of it all, and find it quite energizing!)

So, having determined this was my new pastime, I went to my local independent bookstore to browse. But they were already all sold out of The Golden Compass. This was in July, and the staff member there made a most intriguing side comment to the effect that with the final Harry Potter book just recently released, His Dark Materials was one of the next series they were recommending to young adult readers. Since they were out of stock there, and I don’t get out shopping much, it was sort of find it today elsewhere, or not at all. So, I “happened” to run across a box set of the three volumes: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. On sale! I bought them, and yes, I confess, it was – gasp! – at a book chain store. Sorry. Mea culpa con inconsista.

It took less than a month to read through the trilogy. I took it at leisurely pace. Well, at least at first. Then, actually, holding back became hard. The complex characters and imaginative plot, deep philosophical issues and challenging vocabulary all propelled me forward, until by the end I was hurtling toward the denouement. I certainly did not agree with many of Pullman’s controversy-spawning perspectives, but it certainly was a rousing read!

ANTICIPATION

I began looking forward to the film, wondering how New Line Cinema would attempt to position it, given the apparently militant atheism/agnosticism of Philip Pullman, with his on-the-radar disdain for hierarchies within Christendom. So, I did what any culturologist with a mission would do in the situation: battle it out on eBay! Yes, I began to monitor the auctions and buy-it-nows for searches from “golden compass promos” to versions of “his dark materials.” And don’t forget all the free info and downloads that are there for the taking on the official websites for the movie, book publisher, manufacturers of toys and games, trading card producers, soundtrackers, etc. etc. etc. I’ll probably offer some analysis of these in future blog posts.

Trolling for cultural “treasures” takes its toll, but if you want to do a credible job in MRI-ing the subject, you have to have enough material to bring into the light. And so, I have, by providential payments, ended up with some of the rarest and not-so-rare of Golden Compass movie artifacts: promotional brochures and production notes, authorized sneak preview DVDs and unauthorized documentary DVDs. Some of the most intriguing sources are secondary works about Philip Pullman, his books, the stage adaptation of the trilogy, and the early phases of adapting his trilogy to film. Another day I’ll list what’s in the box of diverse primary and secondary resources I have sitting on my desk. A little something to learn about the author, the books and its adaptations, the marketing, and ourselves from every item …

Anyway, a few of the most fascinating items in my resource collection are (as yet unread) books written by people of various faiths and philosophies who analyze Pullman’s views on religion. Some even question whether he is quite the atheist he claims to be, given the spiritual themes he addresses and the ways he constructs his universes. Just take a look at these titles! Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman’s Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials by Donna Freitas and Jason King. The Devil’s Account: Philip Pullman and Christianity by Hugh Rayment-Pickard. &&<

I especially look forward to reading and reviewing those books, as I have my own wonderments on such subjects. I suppose we all do better at focused reading if we have our own activator questions ready. Like these, from my own musings thus far:

  • Is Pullman the atheist-agnostic-humanist he so consistently identifies himself as, or does his work display unmistakable traces of mysticisms and perhaps even magical realism?
  • If there is no supreme being, or there are only aeons of beings, how can there be any base for interpersonal and intercultural respect, or justice? If there is no absolute good or evil, then isn’t the ultimate reality all about power plays and their prevention? And who is to say what is worth valuing, and why should any one Self or Society protect the supposed right of The Other to peace
  • Is it more than ironic that Lyra trusts the alethiometer to tell her the truth
  • In his trilogy and in interviews, Pullman emphasizes discovery-based learning, expression of curiosity, and the responsibility to choose. Don’t these themes find significant overlap – on the surface level at least – with a sense of holistic stewardship found in Christian humanists like Tolkien, Lewis, Elliot, and others, even though the sources for those similarities emerge from very different deep paradigms
  • Is there such a thing as boundless freedom, or must we have at least a minimally boundaried freedom in order to have at least some social order
  • How does Pullman’s treatment of shamanism and witches in His Dark Materials differ from what might be typical portrayals, and does he endorse (or risk being seen as endorsing) Gnosticism, or even some forms of animism?
  • Is Pullman actually more against fundamentalism and the forceful imposition of hierarchy and rules of Christendom than he is against Christianity as a moral/ethical system and religion?</

Who knows … Mr. Pullman may find those books on his supposed “real” spiritual leanings especially aggravating. I suppose I would, too, if someone used my print materials to label me, say, an ultra-esoteric, Anthroposophist, or Gnostic!

But then again, perhaps this is an appropriate place to appeal again to the reality of new rules of cultural postmodernity, where the meanings of communicators as interpreted and interpolated by recipients are seen as valid in their own unique ways, even if they completely violate the communicator’s intended meaning, whether it is whispered implicitly, or shouted explicitly. Readers of books and viewers of films always bring their own perspectives to the experience, and re-cast it in their own way.

Well, I think that’s enough for the first post. Now we’ll just have to see what unfolds … 

Jump forward to Concrete Media Systems – The Golden Compass, Part 2, Covert Assumption Absorption (Hidden Curriculum).

New terms in the futuristguy Glossary: Agnostic and militant agnostic. Concrete media systems. Culturology/culturologist. Primary source. Secondary source.

NEW GLOSSARY ENTRIES
 

Agnostic and militant agnostic. An agnostic is someone who functions by a skeptical mindset, and either doubts whether there is a God or says that he/she doesn’t know if there is a God. A militant agnostic claims he/she doesn’t know if there is a God and that no one can know there is a God.

Concrete media systems. The broad range of physical products that we use for communication – and not necessarily just as sources of entertainment. Concrete media includes all kinds of things from action figures to zines: books, DVDs, CDs, cards, posters, toys, games, programs, trading cards, brochures, dioramas, jewelry, bumper stickers, etc. These are artifacts of culture.

Culturology / culturologist. There are several technical uses of the term culturology (see wikipedia for details), but it is not a term commonly used. So, I like it! It is not the same as cultural anthropology (too small an academic discipline), or cultural studies (too hip and I’m just not cool enuff for that, am I?). What I mean by culturology is the study of languages, paradigms (deepest level information process styles), and the complex cultural systems that flow from them as the integration point for investigation, observation, analysis, and interpretation. If culture is the most complex things we humans produce, then it makes sense to me that culturology is the most natural way to pursue the big picture of what is happening in our world. Cultural systems basically incorporate themes from all other academic disciplines, so we could think of a culturologist as a sort of three-dimensional cartographer of the entire human spirit.

Primary source. Something that is an original work, produced by one’s own observations, analysis, and interpretations. This does not mean the originator did not have any outside influences. It emphasizes that he/she/they did their own substantive studies, synthesized their own original theories based on the data gathered, and are not merely adding a little something of their thoughts to the work done by someone else.

Secondary source. Analysis, commentary, essays, modifications, or other products that are based on someone else’s primary work and/or primary sources.