Fatal Hunger Strike Hilarity

This Friday marks the worldwide cinematic release of Dan Brown's fictional thriller, The Da Vinci Code by Columbia Pictures. It also will kick off a whole bunch of protests against the movie & book by people who mostly feel the story is insulting and blasphemous.

I've read the book. I can't wait to see the movie. Mostly because Audrey Tautou is really hot. The film itself will likely suck, but it seems to be getting some massive attention because of the protests being organized.

At least one group is even encouraging thousands to participate in fatal hunger strikes as a protest. That's basically starving yourself until you die. Obviously, this is a totally reasonable protest over a movie being released, and is in no way irresponsible. Some religious groups are organizing to publicly burn copies of the book, and in one case they wanted to burn an effigy of Dan Brown. Most of the protests are scheduled to be very peaceful events, however I still find it a bit silly when this (like much of the tripe coming out of Hollywood) IS COMPLETE FICTION. Apparently, Opus Dei formally requested that director Ron Howard place a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie stating that it was a work of fiction. Ron said no. His response: "...spy thrillers don't start off with disclaimers."

These guys have some suggestions for working out those "pre-protest jitters" - claiming "see how easy it is to protest!" They also have themselves a live countdown to protest clock. Sweet.

If you're at all interested, you can download and print out one of these fancy posters for your protest event. If you get close enough to fatally starving yourself, you can gnaw on your bleeding Jesus poster for nourishment.