Richard Adams, �Tales from Watership Down�
The Girlfriend and I thought we were being so clever. I had free tickets to the Camera Cinemas, it was Good Friday (otherwise known as Night of the Living Dead), and we thought it would be funny to go see The Passion of the Christ, so we could throw popcorn, publicly make out, and say, �Thank you sir, may I have another� every time J-dog got beat down.
To start the night off right, I dug out my old DOA shirt that says, �REPENT! YOU FUCKING SAVAGES! REPENT!� We went to Outback to drink some big fucking Newcastle�s. The movie was already starting, but we figured Christ would be getting his ass kicked for a while, so we didn�t bother to rush. Finally, we walk in about fifteen minutes after the movie started.
And let�s get this straight, this was a 9:20 showing on a Friday for a movie that had been out for 37 days. We figured we would have the theater pretty much to ourselves.
We were wrong. We walked into the theater, eyes adjusting to the light, and saw that the theater was packed from front to back.
Remember the scene in Animal House when they walk into the black bar? Boone leans over and says, �We are gonna die.� That�s exactly what we felt like.
Except instead of saying that, I said, �Goddammit!� in a surprised voice, at the very same time The Girlfriend said, �Jesus!�
This probably didn�t help things.
So we make our way to the front row, my white shirt with the red lettering practically glowing in the theater. We crane our head up to see Jesus, big as a house, in the remake of Fight Club told in terms of the gospel.
So we didn�t throw anything or cheer during the gory parts. But I couldn�t believe so many people went to the movie, probably the same people who went to church that morning. Was seeing an overblown S&M film some sort of penance?
For the first time in a long time, I thought about how seriously some people take this God stuff. That�s just weird to me. The example I use when I debate the God Squad is that good writing, any good writing, can sometimes make you wish something was true. The whole verse of �Jesus Loves me, this I know, �cause the Bible tells me so� isn�t so far from that idea.
That being said, who�s to say these rabbits in Watership down don�t have a handle on this whole deity thing? Does worshipping a rabbit named El-ahrairah sound any less likely, or indeed, much different than worshipping some guy on a stick named Yaweh?
But I guess that isn�t going to happen, as this book was only ok, and not good enough to inspire a faith system.
