Albinos Seeing Red Over Da Vinci Code

There's controversy over the new Da Vinci Code movie, and not just from the world's Christians. Albinos are pale with rage over the portrayal of one of their own as the villain:

The notion of Christ as a family man is not the only raw nerve "The Da Vinci Code" has touched. Albinos are bothered that one of their own has yet again been depicted as a villain.

Dan Brown's best seller begins its worldwide debut Wednesday with Tom Hanks as the cryptologist pursuing a 2,000-year-old mystery that could reveal Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and that the Vatican covered it up.

Among his co-stars is Paul Bettany, the British actor playing monk- assassin Silas, an albino with red eyes who carries out a series of bloody murders to secure the secret of the Holy Grail, a trove of lost Christian documents that could prove Jesus had wed.

Critics cite a long list of albinos cast as heavies by Hollywood: The dreadlocked twins in "The Matrix Reloaded," a powder-haired hit man in the Chevy Chase-Goldie Hawn crime romp "Foul Play," the pasty zombies in "The Omega Man," a sadistic killer in "Cold Mountain," even the wicked executioner in the fairy-tale comedy "The Princess Bride."

Michael McGowan, an albino who heads the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, said "The Da Vinci Code" will be the 68th movie since 1960 to feature an evil albino.

"Silas is just the latest in a long string," McGowan said. "The problem is there has been no balance. There are no realistic, sympathetic or heroic characters with albinism that you can find in movies or popular culture."

People with albinism have little or no pigmentation in their skin, eyes and hair.

McGowan said his group asked "Da Vinci Code" director Ron Howard's production outfit, Imagine Entertainment, not to bleach Silas' hair or make his eyes red, but "that fell on deaf ears."

At least he doesn't look like Muhammed. You can just imagine what kind of problems that would have caused.

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