{"id":4423,"date":"2005-08-04T23:18:20","date_gmt":"2005-08-04T23:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html"},"modified":"2005-08-04T23:18:20","modified_gmt":"2005-08-04T23:18:20","slug":"a-reader-writes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html","title":{"rendered":"A reader writes:"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
Consider this: the Da Vinci Code, despite its calumny against the church, was not deemed to be too controversial to turn into a film.  There is another book that has attracted the attention of screenwriters, and by most estimates, would be a natural to turn into a screenplay: John Kennedy Toole’s "The Confederacy of Dunces". What’s interesting is that despite the interest, a film adaptation continues to languish  – the latest casualty was a version starring Will Farrell that was scheduled to be released in 2005, but was stopped mid-filming. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
My guess as for why The Confederacy of Dunces will never be filmed is that the book is chock full of characters who, at first glance, appear to be stereotypical. To appease the hypersensitivity of American culture to ethnic stereotypes,  these would have to be eliminated entirely. This would inevitably dull the humor of the adaptation or even change the essence of the book altogether. Either way, it’s not a recipe for success.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, my point is this: It appears that, as far as Hollywood is concerned, sinister stereotyping and slander against the Church is OK. Having characters that are based in ethnic stereotypes is not OK, even if the stereotypes are ultimately transcended. <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consider this: the Da Vinci Code, despite its calumny against the church, was not deemed to be too controversial to turn into a film.  There is another book that has attracted the attention of screenwriters, and by most estimates, would be a natural to turn into a screenplay: John Kennedy Toole’s "The Confederacy of Dunces".…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA reader writes: - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A reader writes: - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Consider this: the Da Vinci Code, despite its calumny against the church, was not deemed to be too controversial to turn into a film.  There is another book that has attracted the attention of screenwriters, and by most estimates, would be a natural to turn into a screenplay: John Kennedy Toole’s "The Confederacy of Dunces".…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-08-04T23:18:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A reader writes: - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A reader writes: - Via Media","og_description":"Consider this: the Da Vinci Code, despite its calumny against the church, was not deemed to be too controversial to turn into a film.  There is another book that has attracted the attention of screenwriters, and by most estimates, would be a natural to turn into a screenplay: John Kennedy Toole’s "The Confederacy of Dunces".…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-08-04T23:18:20+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html","name":"A reader writes: - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-08-04T23:18:20+00:00","dateModified":"2005-08-04T23:18:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/08\/a-reader-writes.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A reader writes:"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}