Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith

Aronofsky twists ‘Noah’ into Greenpeace worship

Yahweh, we hardly know ye. As presented in Darren Aronofsky’s aggressively weird blockbuster “Noah,” the deity is not the God of Abraham. More like the God of Oberlin: A militant vegetarian fanatic with a MEAT IS MURDER T-shirt, a habit of awarding course credit for anyone spending time at an Occupy protest, and a hatred for humanity disguised as Greenpeace worship.

In “Noah,” the Creator — the word God is not used, supposedly because that might offend somebody, though no one seemed to think portraying Noah as a homicidal maniac who builds the ark with the help of 30-foot rock monsters would be off-putting to anyone — rules, through Noah, that humanity has destroyed the Earth and must be wiped out completely, with only the animals left.

The eight people chosen to survive on the ark? Russell Crowe’s Noah says they must be the last of the species, they’re only there to make sure the animals survive, and if any people happen to get pregnant on the trip their babies must immediately be put to the sword. He adds, “I’m very sorry about that.”

Animals rule. People must die. Because we brought this on ourselves. I picture Al Gore leaping out of his seat and pumping his fist when the Great Unwashed get their long-deserved Great Big Bath.

Darron Aronofsky, third from left, poses with the cast of “Noah” at the UK premiere.WireImage

Responding to criticism that his Noah is “an environmentalist wacko,” Aronofsky essentially said: What’s wrong with environmentalist wackos?

“It’s in Genesis,” he told CNN. “Noah is saving the animals; he’s not out there saving innocent babies; he’s saving the animals, he’s saving creation.”

Adding that he studied “every word” of the Noah story in the Old Testament, Aronofsky said, “It was very clear to us that there was an environmental message. To pull that message out of it, we think, would have been more of an editing job than just sort of representing what’s there.”

What’s more, it’s all happening again. “The water is rising, and we already saw it once,” Aronofsky said. “We are living the second chance that was given to Noah.” Everybody get your life jackets and kayaks ready!

Noah and clan are depicted as tree-hugging vegetarians in the film, whereas the bad guys led by a descendant of Cain are meat-loving rednecks with hobbies that include weapons manufacturing, war-mongering and cannibalism. In short, they’re the Texans of the movie.

While I have no doubt that Aronofsky is a Bible expert (he never tires of telling people he wrote a poem about Noah when he was in seventh grade, which is the kind of thing that makes Hollywood people nod and say, “So deep”), here’s another guy who’s kinda-sorta more up to speed on the subject than Aronofsky. He is a professor of the Old Testament at Yale.

From left: Leo McHugh Carroll, Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth and Emma Watson in a scene from “Noah.”Niko Tavernise

“As a biblical scholar, I often find myself swatting down erroneous or biased claims as to what the Bible ‘really means,’ ” writes Joel S. Baden in Politico. “In this case, though, the religious right is unmistakably correct: Of all the stories in the Bible, the flood narrative is perhaps the least environmentally friendly.”

It’s demented of Aronofsky to suggest that God wanted the human race to die out and that Noah interfered with this plan because he was simply too soft to assassinate his own grandchildren. God set aside two of each animal but eight humans so that we might be fruitful, multiply and barbecue.

Yes, it’s a cookout that changes God’s mind: In the Bible, God simply decides He’s okay with the wickedness of man, rules that humanity is superior to animals and declares after the Flood, ‘Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat. The fear and dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the Earth and all the birds of the sky and all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand.” Yum, yum.

What changes God’s mind is a sacrifice of some of the beasts brought aboard the Ark to glorify Him (apart from the pairs, extra animals were saved specifically to be eaten, contra Aronofsky). God is honored by the animal sacrifice and unconditionally agrees never to destroy the Earth again, “no strings attached,” writes Baden, “in what can only be seen as the antithesis of the environmentalist message.”

Hollywood filmmakers worry more about being untrue to the spirit of a 1959 comic book than they do about the Bible. But their incessant doomsday proselytizing grows tiresome.

Aronofsky is simply an example of how those freaky unshaven guys you used to see carrying “REPENT for the END is NIGH!” signs are now media elites in chunky glasses. Except instead of sandwich boards they blast their silly messages all over $125 million movies.