Religion In The Exorcist

From its release in October 1973, The Exorcist generated an unprecedented amount of pandemonium among movie goers worldwide. Theaters across the us, and the world, were flooded with patrons hoping to experience the shock and terror that was inspiring such notorious media coverage. Media outlets across the globe were reporting murders and suicides attributed to the film, “in San Francisco a deranged patron charged the screen in an attempt to kill the demon; in Harlem a priest attempted to exercise drugs from his neighborhood” and across the globe more people flooded the cinemas daily. Much debate ensued over whether the film was a deeply religious allegory about the return to faith, specifically Catholicism, in the modern world or if it was …show more content…
The Exorcist touched upon a generation’s greatest fears, from the collapse of traditional family life to the corruption that was being revealed in the Nixon White House it seemed to many that all aspects of quotidian life were under siege. In this essay I will conjecture that The Exorcist is a commentary on the fears of white, middle class, middle aged, Anglican and Catholic American’s whose creeping unease over social and political change were presented to them unceremoniously in a “graphic desecration of everything that was considered wholesome and good about the fading American Dream. ” Those who were most enraged by the film where the very demographic for whom the film was most relevant: white, conservative Americans. The film was written by a member of the conservative right, and reflected their concerns, however the vulgarity of the content alienated the conservative and religious sectors, the underlying message was in keeping with their greatest concerns. The bias and fear that subconsciously plagued the white, religious majority in America at the time, among which were counted the loss of faith in God and the Church, racial turmoil, unrest in the Middle East which caused the 1973 Oil Crisis, and the deterioration of the fabric of the American …show more content…
All of the faces of the local workers are covered and obscured by shadow or face cloths with the only fully uncovered face belonging to Father Lancaster Merrin, a Catholic priest who occupies the role of director of the site. At the site a dark, mystical relic is pulled from red foreign soil by white hands of Father Merrin. The focus on only Father Merrin implicitly suggests that the white, Christian Father is more civilized and more relatable than the mysterious and somewhat frightening locals of whom the only faces shot directly are bearded men wearing traditional Muslim garb and a weathered workman who is blind in one eye. The workman’s face is immediately followed by a jump cut to the face of a grandfather clock numbered with Arabic script implying the anachronistic nature of the culture that accounts for the possibility of “an obscene ancient evil” capable of “ripping apart the modern world” in the form of demonic forces or political