The Golden Compass, A commentary

There are at least two layers of subtle deception in The Golden Compass.  The first, are what I would call, “Deep Background Deceptions”, and the second, “Plot Device Deceptions”.  Deep Background Deceptions are those that cause one to question your assumptions about what constitutes right and wrong, good & evil, etc.  The Golden Compass takes this type of normal plot device to an extreme to the point that it is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad even for adults, let alone children.  Plot Device Deceptions are those devices in the movie that tend to make you question which characters are good or evil.  This is a common device used in all movies, because the bad guys must always at least appear to fool the good guys into thinking they are not bad.  But, in most movies, the audience is in on the deception from the start.  Not so with The Golden Compass, which is one of the reasons children should not watch this movie.
Some examples of Deep Background Deceptions include:

• Fairy Tale Nature:  This movie is fairy-tale in nature.  In other words, it is a cartoon without the animated look.  Fairy tales traditionally, are stories with well-defined good and evil characters (Snow White vs. Evil Queen, Cinderella vs. evil step mother & sisters, etc.).  Children expect these simple distinctions in their fairy tales and when those distinctions are blurred, they become confused as to who is good and who is evil.  This movie is written in such a way as to not only blur those distinctions, but to make it appear that evil is good and good evil.

• Demons vs. Souls:  In this movie, “demons” are changed around from the traditional evil characters that most Christian children are taught are the enemies of God, into one’s personal conscience and helper.  The insidious thing is not that in the movie there is such a helper at everyone’s side, but that they are identified with demons in a way that makes it look like this is the normal way of things.  Children could become confused into thinking that demons in the real world are in some way similar to the friendly “demons” of the movie, that there is, or should be, a “demon” at everyone’s side.  This comparison is made in the prologue of the movie, setting the stage for an entire movie that turns traditional definitions of good & evil upside down.

• The Magisterium or “The Ruling Power”:  This is portrayed as an evil group of people who set the rules and determine right from wrong with the aim of oppressing people and secretly forcing them to do things against their nature, like separating them from their demons (their souls/consciences). 

In reality,

“In the Roman Catholic Church the word "Magisterium" refers to the teaching authority of the church…According to Catholic doctrine, the Magisterium is able to teach or interpret the truths of the Faith, and it does so either non-infallibly or infallibly.” (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magisterium)
This body is not an evil group that forces Catholics to their will.  It instructs Catholics in what it means to be Catholic and what Catholics believe.  The only restriction the Magisterium places on Catholics is that if they do not believe in the teachings of the Church, they cannot be Catholic.  There are no threats, no punishments.  The movie therefore demonizes a holy institution and, through it, everything for which the Catholic Church stands.

• “Gobblers”:  The secret police of the “Magisterium”.  This body personifies the evil of the Magisterium further demonizing it.  These people are reminiscent of the Nazi Gestapo and are just as evil.  They even have uniforms that look like the Nazi brown shirts and speak a language that sounds remarkably like German.  Not very subtle.

• Dust:  In the movie, Dust is a thing of secret knowledge about which the Magisterium does not wish anyone to know.  However, it is the truth of their existence and the Magisterium is hiding it.  This implies that there is some evil purpose to their obfuscation since, obviously, the truth is preferable to a lie. 

The Catholic Magisterium also requires that Catholics not investigate certain subjects, books, etc., because it might threaten the investigator’s faith.  By the analogy above, the Catholic Magisterium must be evil and hiding some truth that should be revealed.  It is not.  The items deemed dangerous are not completely restricted, just reserved for serious investigators with the proper credentials (university researchers, biblical scholars, theologians, etc.)  The goal is not to totally destroy or suppress the knowledge, but to preserve the faith of the innocent who do not have the knowledge to understand what they are investigating and who might become confused in their faith. 
Any parent who does not let their five-year-old watch the Terminator, or Basic Instinct has done the same thing.  The child is restricted in their entertainment choices, not because the parents do not want them to eventually have the right to watch what they want, but because the parent knows the child is not mature enough to know what is and is not good for themselves.  The child must be given time to mature sufficiently before viewing adult material.

•  “Intercision”: 

“…a type of fictional operation in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy that separates an individual from their demon. In effect, the operation separates the person from his or her soul, while (usually) leaving the person alive.”  (Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercision)
Intercision is portrayed as an evil process that does great harm to children, especially the poor and underprivileged who should be protected, and by association, to the children watching.  This sounds remarkably like “inquisition”, a process that is commonly, and falsely, believed to have had the purpose of burning heretics at the stake.  It is another stab at the Catholic Church.

Some examples of Plot Device Deceptions include:

• Mrs. Marisa Coulter:  The main evil character, Mrs. Coulter, is portrayed as a good person, when in fact, she subtly is not.  She is a beautiful, smiling, befriending, and a mother figure.  All these characteristics are what a child uses to determine who their friends are, and the lack of these characteristics are used to determine who the bad guys are that they should avoid.  It may sound like I am taking this to something of an extreme, but let’s look at some other examples of characters that appeared good, when they were in fact evil.
• Cruella De Vil, Walt Disney’s “101 Dalmatians”:  Cruella was obviously evil.  Though she was a woman, dressed nicely, and attempted to be nice to people and the puppies, Disney left no doubt who the evil character was.  Her appearance was scrawny.  The movie wasted no time in showing the dark side of her character when she interacted with her stooges and with the dogs away from nicer people. 
• The White Witch, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”:  In this movie, though the White Witch gives the appearance of goodness in her dress and manner, from the start she is surrounded by evil looking characters that give her away and in the first scene with her she strikes Edmund.  She is obviously evil, even to children’s eyes.

Mrs. Coulter, on the other hand, is portrayed as beautiful and gives the appearance of being nice to Lyra throughout the movie.  Eventually, Lyra does see through her, but not because of the way Mrs. Coulter acts, but because of the way her demon acts.  Because there is a separation between Mrs. Coulter and her demon, it preserves the possibility that it is the demon and not Mrs. Coulter that is the evil one, at least to children in the audience, if not to Lyra.
Furthermore, other adults, including the “scholars” into whose care Lyra has been entrusted and to whom she looks for direction, defer to Mrs. Coulter’s authority throughout the movie giving her the aura of an authority figure who should be obeyed.  In fact, Lyra is portrayed as a child who blithely disregards authority and views rebellion as something to be aspired to, so it might be construed that Lyra should not be disobeying the authority figure of Mrs. Coulter in the first place, at least by a child who does not know any better.

• Gyptians: The Gyptians are portrayed as evil-looking pirate-people.  They embody in their looks and actions all that children are taught to believe is bad.  It turns out they are the good guys in the movie, but even I, a discerning adult, questioned whether Lyra had fallen into dangerous hands when the Gyptians rescued her.  How much more so would a child?

Clearly there is a great number of subtle role reversals in this movie that children are not equipped to understand.  Additionally, the roll reversals are constructed in such a way that the distinctions between good and evil are distorted to the point that it is difficult to discern which characters/ideas are good and which are evil.  Finally, good and evil are defined such that there is a distinct slant toward a subtle anti-Catholic message.  I have not read the books, but I have been told that they become increasingly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian in general as the story progresses.
This movie is, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, an insidious attempt to degrade the definition of evil and show it to be, in fact, good.  Furthermore, The Golden Compass appears to be a serious attempt to undermine the Catholic faith (especially with children) both for Catholics, and non-Catholics who have often been brought up with false ideas about Catholicism in the first place. 
My children will not watch this movie, at least until they are much older and then, only with me there to point out the problems.  What they do as adults, I cannot control, but hopefully by that point, they have a strong enough grounding in the Faith that these insidious problems will jump out at them as they did for me.