Wonkette Movie Night: Dogma

“I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.”

Does this guy look familiar?

If you didn't already know, now you know the origin of the meme.

I'm sure you've seen this dude a million times, in the movie it is used as a way to get people excited by Catholicism again, to draw them in with a less somber image of the crucified son of god. Buddy Christ is the mascot for Catholicism Wow! which allows for a jumping point in the film, as the change is celebrated at a church that is to be rededicated. That rededication presents a loophole called “plenary indulgence” or a Catholic Get Out of Jail Free card for two fallen angels to re-enter Heaven. 

In Dogma, those angels, Bartleby (a Watcher) and Loki (The Angel of Death) must cross the threshold of a church in New Jersey to go home, which for them is Heaven. But to do so would cause the destruction of everything. Because a loophole would mean God made a mistake, and this all powerful being must be seen as infallible or bye bye to everything. Talk about an ego.

Along the way to New Jersey, Loki wants to revel in his glorious past and smote some sinners like in Old Testament days. At the same time a group made of two prophets, Jay and Silent Bob; the last scion Bethany; Rufus the 13th Apostle and Serendipity, a muse is on the same trek. They have been pulled together to save the world from destruction.

I found myself thinking of Dogma as a world like that other universe with a different Loki who appears in many films and a TV series but not as an angel. You have a mythology, good vs evil, superheroes and a battle to save humanity. Dogma was an Avengers' movie before there were Avengers' movies.

In the Marvel Universe, Thor's brother, Loki seeks to attain unlimited power from the Tesseract, which could destroy humanity. A group of superheroes pull together to save the world from destruction.

In Norse mythology Loki is the god of mischief, trickery, and deception, but not the progeny of Odin. In Marvel mythology he is the son of Odin. I would imagine that many people believe that those old Norse tales relating the story of Loki as the son of Odin, do not realize that it is only a cinematic connection.

Faith is a strong belief in something. Even not to believe is belief. But is religion the same thing as faith?

Serendipity, a Muse portrayed by Salma Hayek points out that humans do not celebrate faith, they mourn it. 

Most humans create elaborate stories and rules when it comes to religion. Organized to benefit a few, usually coming down to hierarchies of mostly men wanting to control others. This film focuses of Catholic mythology. Which as you can imagine created a controversy even before the movie had premiered. The Catholic League denounced Dogma as blasphemy. There were organized protests around the world and death threats made against writer and director, Kevin Smith.

But Smith made the best of it. He made plans with a friend to attend the protest as a protestor… of his own movie. And as a luck would have it a local news crew was there to capture Smith’s spectacular trolling of the haters.

Smith: “I don’t think it stands for anything positive.”

Reporter: “What does it stand for?”

Smith: “I don’t know, but I’ve been told not good.”

There was one other controversy connected with this movie and that is the involvement of a truly evil person, Harvey Weinstein. His ownership of the film and refusal to sell it to Kevin Smith has made it difficult for fans to find ways to watch it.

When Kevin Smith reached out to Weinstein about buying back the rights for Dogma he said,

“we felt very dirty about (it) because we didn’t want to give him money. But at the same time, it’s like my movie and he’s got it.

He’s holding it hostage. My movie about angels is owned by the devil himself. And if there’s only one way out of this, maybe we could buy it away.”

His offer was rejected. Weinstein wanted five million dollars.

Said Smith,

“Look, I love ‘Dogma’ as much as the next guy but a) I don’t have $5 million and b) that’s not what the market bears anymore. We live in a streaming era. The last I heard was from a different company, saying he wouldn’t sell me my movie back. I thought what else can I do? There’s not much. You can make a public stink, but I don’t think that guy reads the news anymore.”

Dogma stars Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Linda Fiorentino, George Carlin, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Chris Rock, Jason Lee, Salma Hayek and Alan Rickman.

Dogma is available for free on YouTube(with captions) and the Internet Archive. Not available via a streaming service. Also here and here.

To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.

Fill the snack bowl, pour the beverages and enjoy!

Tonight’s cartoon is Rabbit Hood starring Bugs Bunny from 1949. A Merrie Melodies and Warner Bros. cartoon from Chuck Jones. I was only able to find it on the Internet Archive.