Despite what the title says, my son and I went to go and see Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice the week it came out and it was not that bad! I actually enjoyed some parts of it and I am not even a DC fan (make mine Marvel). I did not find the plot really terrible and neither were the characters. Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill are both great actors! The special effects were not silly and it was really cool to see the other characters. Now it was not a work of art (like Christopher Nolan’s Batman series) or a worldview changing or even a film paradigm-shifting film. It was not Apocalypse Now and it will never be on the AFI’s list of best films of all-time. To me, it was as good as The Avengers. But that is just my humble opinion.

What I was most surprised at was the negative reactions from so many people. YouTube is full of so many hate videos regarding Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. So many people are dropping f-bombs and just cutting the movie to shreds. It seems trendy to bash the film and make online petitions to ban director Zach Snyder from ever making another movie. I feel bad for him!

Now, I realize that this is just a film (that a lot of people worked very hard to do as good a job as they could on). It is not life. However the one point I would like to use this film to make is that there are a lot of people out there who are convinced that their opinions are more than that. They think that they their opinions are more the viewpoint of gods themselves. And any challenge to these self-appointed demagogues is a an excuse for bullying others with names and even physical violence. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Yelp, and discussion boards just everywhere, it seems we have lost perspective on what an opinion is and how to disagree agreeably. There seems to be no standards of netiquette anymore. It seems that each person is trying to out do the other in terms of curse words and how to offend those who society says it is ok to offend (political-correctness). This is true in criticizing films and especially true in criticizing others’ political and religious beliefs.

On March 11th of 2016, Donald Trump was supposed to speak at the University of Illinois Chicago. However, he was not able to do so due to protesters. In this case, though most of the people were exercising their rights of peaceful assembly and free speech, several threw bricks and other objects. Many wanted to deny Trump his right to free speech. A similar thing happened to Ted Cruz when he went to Brooklyn, New York.

Today, everyone is a critic and everyone thinks that their opinions are worth hurting others for.

Now, one could argue that this not necessarily a new thing. I remember back to my days in Economics class and hearing stories of people being beaten for crossing lines of strikers and of a story of a man being shot for trying to clear the road to deliver milk when men were protesting conditions in a factory. These were not reactions to a film or a candidate’s talk, though.

Men of Judeo-Christian values have no place as critics of films, politics, sports, beliefs, or even government that result in the pain and suffering of others. I remember being encouraged to make jokes about others’ beliefs during various Christian youth conferences and it sickened me. We have no place or reason or excuse for trash-talking others’ beliefs or opinions. We are called to a higher standard. We need to look to the behavior of others who have gone before us who have dealt with censorship and criticism: Peter, Paul, Martin Luther-King, Ben Carson, Father Oscar Romero, others and our Lord as we address things we do not like or feel we can support.

Galatians 5:13-15 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

—————————————————————————————————————-W.