Editor\u2019s Note: This post was written by Guest Writer, Seth T. Hahne. Besides commenting incessently here, he also occasionally blogs at Nowheresville, USA<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n As a Christian and something of a minor connoisseur of creative product including-but-not-limited-to literature, cinema, music, games, and comics, I am frequently concerned by the inappropriate reaction the American Christian subculture foments against imaginations it either misapprehends or flatly distorts by reason of dogma alone. Quite plainly, I live a life of frustration and cynicism\u2014and not frustration and cynicism brought about through my noble struggle against a cruel and oppressive reality, one forged by children of the serpent, sons of Cain and Lamech and Agag.<\/p>\n That would be too simple, too straightforward. Too, perhaps, modern. We live in supposedly postmodern times and so the villains of my life story likely cannot be those who wear black and twirl moustaches. Obvious antagonists don\u2019t any longer strike us as realistic, so my villains wear the camouflage of camaraderie. Those who assault me are those I call brothers.<\/strong><\/p>\n But then, the first killer was the killer of his brother, so I suppose I get off easy merely being frustrated and disappointed by my brothers. After all, in a more modern world, Michael Karounos might be trying to kill me as well as hurt me in my heart.<\/p>\n Michael Karounos is (according to fifteen minutes of Googling) an assistant professor of English at Trevecca Nazarene University, where I imagine he does not intentionally hatch schemes designed to thwart my sense of peace with the world around me. Intentions aside, however, he has done very well at this one particular activity. He also participates in the Journal of Religion and Film, betraying a point (or two) at which our personal interests converge. It is in Karounos\u2019 interest as a reviewer of film that he has demolished my hope in humanity for this week.<\/p>\n Which is perplexing because, from what I gather, he\u2019s not necessarily a bad sort. I mean, he praised Steamboy<\/em><\/a>, after all. (Though to be fair, he does seem a little too hurt by that film\u2019s quote-unquote anti-Christian message; why is it that anything that treats cultural Christendom with criticism\u2014or let\u2019s be honest, with anything less than fanboy\u2019s adulation\u2014automatically becomes an entrenched anti-Christian message?)<\/p>\n In any case, Karounos was brought to my attention earlier this week in that he wrote a supposedly amusing review<\/a> of the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman\u2019s Coraline<\/em>. Neil Gaiman, at least, found it amusing (\u201cFunniest Coraline review ever<\/a>\u201c). Now Gaiman has no paucity of followers and so within minutes of him advertising for Karounos\u2019 review, the page was pretty thoroughly crashed. He then linked to the Google cache that the hilarity might continue unabated.<\/p>\n I wept.<\/p>\n In my soul. From embarrassment. I do this whenever some member of our diasporous community says ridiculous things and those things are tied to the name of Christ. I do this a lot. Or at least a lot more than I feel I should. With Karounos, I feel the sting even more since from reading a little of his work over the past couple days, I feel like he shouldn\u2019t be the one making me this frustrated. He should know better.<\/p>\n But maybe that makes it worse.<\/p>\n In any case, in his review of <\/strong>Coraline<\/strong><\/em>, Karounos so thoroughly misinterprets the film that he ends up railing against a movie that doesn\u2019t really exist<\/strong>. He sees slights against his (our) faith in every crevice of the film. He even sees them on its surfaces.<\/p>\n In the book, the Other Mother punishes Coraline: \u201cYou needed to be taught a lesson, but we temper our justice with mercy here; we love the sinner but hate the sin.\u201d The speech is clearly a slam at the kind of home where mothers cook and fathers work and parents speak of \u201csin\u201d and \u201csinner\u201d and \u201cmercy\u201d and \u201cjustice.\u201d It is the kind of home that atheists imagine Christians live in: a Stepford Family reality of puppet people with no creativity or individuality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rather than take the most plain-faced view, that the scene demonstrates that even the most innocuous or kindly words can become chilling when put in the mouths of monsters, Karounos works on the belief that Gaiman is lashing out, as if Coraline<\/em> was his opportunity to say, \u201cTake that, Stupid Christianity!\u201d Karounos implies as well that the Other Mother\u2019s domestic-goddess qualities shine forth an atheist\u2019s vision of hell, one in which domesticity is a stand-in for Christianity and as such is intolerable and terrifying\u2014forgetting that it was the domesticity and creativity and verve of the Other Mother and Father that made them desirable, that made them a picture of heaven (a picture that rotted only when the facade of these heavenly things could no longer be maintained).<\/p>\n The evil is a mother who cooks and cleans and the good is a rejection of that mother.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Additionally Karounos sees a film fraught with misogyny, perversion, and celebrated family dysfunction (\u201cGaiman\u2019s perverse view of relationships, an atheistic view of family\u201d), speaking more perhaps to fundamentalist hang-ups than to any actual content in Coraline<\/em>\u2018s. He even goes so far as to imply motive for laughter on the parts of children in attendance.<\/p>\n [The film] portrays a naked Miss Forcible as a strip dancer wearing a sequined thong and stripper\u2019s pasties on impossibly huge breasts. The children in the audience cried out their disgust in tones of amusement and surprise, as if to say, \u201cSo that\u2019s what they look like without any clothes!\u201d It is a deeply misogynistic image which will elicit disgust in any Christian viewer, regardless of age.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Not only was the scene not misogynistic (deeply or otherwise), but it failed to elicit disgust in any member of the group of Christians with whom I attended the screening (myself and six females with ages ranging between 15 and 28). Further, none of the many children in the audience seemed disgusted either. It should here be noted that the supposed naked woman is actually just a full-body suit that the actual woman is wearing\u2014making her, if anything, the exact and total opposite of nude.<\/p>\n