Opus Dei, the secretive conservative arm of the Catholic Church, isn't the only special-interest group with its robes in a knot over the upcoming feature-film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, which opens May 19. Albinos are none too happy with the thriller, either.
As tens of millions of readers around the world already know -- spoiler alert! -- the most unsettling character in the Dan Brown page-turner is Silas, a self-flagellating, devout albino monk who murders and menaces his way around Paris in what he believes is a bid to save the Catholic Church.
To the National Organization of Albinism and Hypopigmentation (NOAH), which offers support services to the approximately 17,000 Americans born with a decreased ability to create pigment in the skin, Silas (played in the film by Paul Bettany with his hair dyed platinum blond) is just another in a long and insulting string of Hollywood's dependence on the stereotyped evil albino, from Vincent Price in The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) to the twins in The Matrix Reloaded (2003).
Dr. Vail Reese, a San Francisco dermatologist who has worked with NOAH, maintains a website (skinema.com) where he muses on Hollywood's tendency to make characters with skin disorders into villains.
"People may not in their daily life or lifetime necessarily encounter people with albinism, so the few times they've seen this condition is in films like The Firm or Foul Play or Lethal Weapon," he says. "When this evil image is perpetuated, that's going to affect people's viewpoint -- maybe not even consciously -- so that when they encounter somebody with albinism, there may be this bias or prejudice."
Reese says that he and representatives of NOAH spoke with executives at Imagine Entertainment, the studio making the film for Sony Pictures, before the Ron Howard-directed film went into production.
"It would be exceedingly difficult to tell the story and lose some of the more controversial religious aspects," agrees Reese. "But this character -- a monk carrying a gun, whipping himself, shooting people, choking people -- this fellow is plenty spooky enough. Does he really need to have albinism? That was the question posed to these different executives before they stopped returning calls."
The release of The Da Vinci Code is especially dispiriting to NOAH, because 2004 and 2005 marked the first two-year stretch in decades that an evil albino character was absent from films. Reese knows that change is slow.
"We're looking for more of a balance in film rather than always the evil albino killer," he says. "Maybe retire that character and introduce the next-door neighbour who has albinism, or the best friend. Or who knows -- the action star? We don't have to jump right into the Harrison Ford role. Just something different than these repeat villains."
Simon Houpt