James Carroll: "An obscene portrayal of Christ's Passion"

[Hand]

Carroll's a former Catholic seminarian, a man of strong convictions and a powerful voice... and here he goes after Mel Gibson.

"...the impact of his perverse imagination on a sacred story, coming at a time when the world is newly riven with primal violence in the name of God, threatens an even more grievous problem. The subject of this film, despite its title, is not the Passion of the Christ, but the sick love of physical abuse, engaged in for power."

Link

On edit: fixed link so it works in IE (I'm a Mozilla user normally).

[leftchick]

1. the link did not work for me...

I would love to read it!

[barbaraann]

2. We can only hope

that this sick, sick movie will open the eyes of a lot of people to how evil fundamentalism of any sort is.

[stopthegop]

4. "how evil fundamentalism of any sort is"

sorta like "Abortion on demand...no questions"?..sounds sorta fundamentalist to me..just from a different perspective

[Trajan]

15. Freedom on demand ...

What more need be said ??? ...

[blackcat77]

7. The local tv stations are showing....

...lots of weepy fundamentalists coming out of the theatre saying it's the greatest film in history. Of course the catch to that is that the people who are seeing it now are parts of church groups who've paid for the whole theatre and brought in their own people only.

That's a detail they conveniently forget to mention.

[trogdor]

22. Then they write user reviews for Yahoo!

You wouldn't believe the number of these reviews, dated EARLY this morning (as soon as Yahoo! turned on the link). They read as a chorus, exactly as you are describing them. Over 80 user reviews before 9:00 AM EST.

I wrote one, giving the film all F's for general principle,stating the obvious, that these people are having a review-writing party at the behest of their pastors, and many of them probably haven't even seen the film.

[nannygoat]

13. Have you guys seen this? It was posted on a thread earlier this week...

The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5160.shtml

American fundies are an evil, evil bunch!

[donsu]

3. I'm glad to see that sane christians are fighting back

nt

[Jim Sagle]

5. Corrected link:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/02/24/an_obscene_portrayal_of_christs_passion/

[Hand]

6. Thanx, Jim Sagle...

Don't what I had wrong...:hi:

[Jim Sagle]

17. You had too many slashes after the "http:".

[Hand]

18. Ah...

A little clumsy with the cut and paste...

[carolinayellowdog]

8. High time someone used the word `obscene'

which admirers of this film would be first to apply to anything that showed 45 minutes of sex rather than violence

[stopthegop]

10. so...was 'The Matrix' obscene in your opinion? n/t

[carolinayellowdog]

11. no opinion b/c I haven't seen or read about it

but if it equals the gory violence described in the reviews of this film, hell yes.

[einniv]

9. What would you say are the primary differences are between

this movie and the The Last Temptation of Christ?

I haven't seen the new one. I loved Last Temptation.

(I'm an athiest by the way)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

12. Wow...

that is one powerful denunciation, and from someone whose writings I respect.

Very interesting.

[On the Road]

14. *NOW* I'm Starting to See the Reason for the Furor

I've been defending the movie -- or at least the idea of the movie -- as a legitimate subject, a continuation of passion narratives that have been performed for centuries, and a reflection of the gospel narratives.

But it's more than that. Here's the rub:

Jews as presented in this movie are overwhelmingly negative. Roman soldiers brutally execute Jesus, but Pontius Pilate is a good man, who stands in dramatic contrast to Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest. Going well beyond anything in the Gospels, Gibson's film emphasizes Roman virtue and Jewish venality by inventions like these:

Pilate's wife Claudia is an actual heroine, who aligns herself with Mary. Mary, terrified for her son, appeals to benign Romans against the hostile Jewish crowd. Claudia is the woman behind the Romans. Her dramatic counterpart, the woman behind the Jews, is none other than a female Satan.

Pilate kindly offers Jesus a cup of water. Pilate orders Jesus flogged, but only to satisfy the Jewish bloodthirst. The Jews are expressly indicted by the Good Thief, who, after the crucified Jesus says, "Father, forgive them . . . ," tells Caiaphas that "He prays for you." Jews are indicted by Jesus, who consoles Pilate by telling him, "It is he who has delivered me to you who has the greater sin."

Pontius Pilate was not a good guy -- he was fired by the Emperor for ruling with excessive violence. Which, by Roman standards, means a lot.

The "Jews" who handed Jesus over to Pilate were not representative of the population. They were the rich, upper-class quislings who cut a deal with Rome to keep the rabble in line in return for peace and a luxurious lifestyle for themselves. To blame the entire population is blaming the peasants for the abuses of a king.

There's better historical perspective available today. But apparently, Mel Gibson didn't use it. Instead, he used the anti-Semitic Catholic historical sources. No wonder he's on the defensive.

[Nancy Waterman]

16. I had been looking forward to seeing this

But I really respect James Carroll. His perspective is always very insightful and usually very on target. This is an incredibly negative reaction to this movie which I tend to think is likely quite accurate.

This article on Gibson's father adds another piece to the story. He evidently thinks the Holocaust is exaggerated and is big on Jewish conspiracy theories:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/19/1077072756433.html

In his interview on WSNR radio's Speak Your Piece, to be broadcast on Monday, Hutton Gibson, argued that many European Jews counted as death camp victims of the Nazi regime had in fact fled to countries like Australia and the United States.

"It's all -- maybe not all fiction -- but most of it is," he said, adding that the gas chambers and crematoria at camps like Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so many people.

<snip>
During his lengthy radio interview, Hutton Gibson, 85, said Jews were out to create "one world religion and one world government" and outlined a conspiracy theory involving Jewish bankers, the US Federal Reserve and the Vatican, among others.

[ithacan]

19. conservatives really get off on blood and gore

something about that S&M really appeals to those conservatives...

[Bridget Burke]

20. Blood & Gore with a homoerotic edge...

Jesus is a finely built young man who's apparently half naked throughout most of the movie.

[mac2]

21. This movie has been beaten to death..enough already!! It's a

Bush distraction. The heat is off him for his lies, his wars, his economy.