text: The Mass Never Ends: It's only a movie...it's only a movie...it's only a movie
  It's only a movie...it's only a movie...it's only a movie
  Why The Da Vinci Code Is Not a Fictionby Tim Rohr, 5/25/06
  In addition, Brown breaks another rule. The fiction label implies either fictional characters in fictional events, or, if it's historical fiction, fictional characters in actual events. An example of both of these applications is found in the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe from C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.
  At the beginning of the story, the Pevensie children are sent to stay in the country because of the German bombardment of London during WWII. Though the Pevensies are fictional characters, the German bombardment of London is not. Lewis does not have the Russians bombing London. Lewis can make up anything he wants about the Pevensies but he cannot make up anything he wants about the historical events of WWII. And once the events of WWII no longer figure in the story the fiction begins in earnest.
  According to the rules, author Brown produces neither a genuine fiction nor an historical one, but a gross revision of real history which he masquerades as a fiction. And this is what draws the ire of secular critics, many of whom could care less about the defamation of Christianity. Author Brown must have realized that the gig was up for his "visibility" has decreased in proportion to the exposition of his errors.
  But most movie goers and readers of pulp fiction pay little attention to critics. Studios and publishers know that the average consumer of their wares is driven by the satisfaction of curiosity or the desire for distraction and even more by an itch for scandal. And the bigger the person, the bigger the scandal, and the bigger the itch! And how much bigger can you get than the person upon whom all history centers?
  We'll leave that discussion for another time. Meanwhile, it is instructive to see that once confronted with both the historical impossibilities of the claims in The DVC and laughable reviews of the movie, the DVC crowd has shifted from the aforementioned euphoric condescension to a defensive "Why are you taking this so seriously? It's only a fiction!"
  This rhetorical realignment is reminiscent of what happened a few years ago when the pro-abortion crowd changed their tune from "abortion rights" to "a woman's right to choose". Overwhelming medical evidence necessitated the change. Pictures from inside the womb as well as those of what was left of an aborted fetus at the bottom of a medical bucket did not square with the purported "blob of tissue" that the pro-aborts would have us believe a fetus was. Lies are by nature chameleon in their ability to morph themselves into whatever language the perpetuation of the lie necessitates.
  In any event our challenge now is not how to refute the errors of The DVC, but how to respond to the charge that we Catholics are taking this too seriously since "it's only a fiction". The real question, however, is not whether this or that is a fiction, but whether this or that has the power to influence. This is the primary concern. And anyone who believes that fiction is only entertainment and has no power to influence has no understanding of Hollywood where the manufacture of influence is a full time enterprise.
  Perhaps history's greatest lesson (I say "lesson" euphemistically since the term assumes something was learned) in the power of fiction to influence was the Third Reich. The fact that Hitler was a madman is no secret of history and the German intelligentsia of his time wrote him off as such. To them, he was a mad little cartoon, a freak, a "fiction". It was in fact this label that allowed his unimpeded, mercurial, and ultimately catastrophic rise to power. No one was looking.