Has anybody besides me notice the subliminal in 'The Passion Of The Christ

[icymist]

With much interest have I been watching the reaction to this movie. These have been in the wide range of cursing Jews (for 'killing Christ') for Italians (for being 'Romans') and that the entire movie is one great S&M flick! I must admit that I haven't actually seem the movie yet, but, I am observing the reaction to it. So far, we have seen a church in the Midwest put on it's message board that 'Jews killed Christ' and a woman who died of a heart attack during the Crucifixion scene. All this aside, I've noticed something very subliminal in this movie; it is in two languages that are extinct. There are subtitles to the translation to this dialog. Why is that, you may ask? Could it be that the authors and producers of this movie consider that what Christ actually said is not important? Could it also be said of these same people that 'our translation' is what is important?

I plan on watching this movie soon, but not for the movie, which I consider way too violent for anything I would watch, but to observe the audience. This movie could be the beginning of propaganda films that stir up such great emotion, not seen since Nazi Germany.

[LibertyorDeath]

1. Great insight on the media is your last name McLuhan by chance

[icymist]

5. Thank you. No. My name's not Mcluhan.

Who is that, BTW? I've just came up with these realizations today by wondering what all the fuss was about a movie! Then the news reports of how bloody it is came on my television. I called a few friends and got the insight about the S&M scene's view.

[Sufi Marmot]

10. Marshall McCluhan...

This guy. Influential media critic - "The medium is the message", and all that..."Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man", is a dense, if interesting read (that's the only thing I've read by him so far). He had some good insights, although a lot of his theories about media didn't come to fruition.

-SM

[icymist]

11. Thank you. I must read him.

:)

[Sufi Marmot]

14. I found many of his ideas fairly obtuse and difficult to digest..

I suspect I'm not the only one, but no doubt there are people brighter than me who didn't struggle with it... :-)

[lostnfound]

2. Something about the marketing of this movie has troubled me, too.

I have the same uncanny feeling about it as I did when the 'Left Behind' books came out..
Both the books and the movie are just background noise to me, but I had a feeling about the books that they had a hidden agenda..here we are a year later and coworkers admit to me that their voting decisions are being shaped by the books it's 'so close to reality'..

I've noticed the incredible airtime devoted to this movie.
I hope you are wrong. :-(

[FDRrocks]

3. I'm convinced it's part of the culture war...

Especially due to the media hype it has caused. The owners of the companies that own the media clearly want to hype this movie to shit.

I didn't like the sentiments of this film at first. If this starts a wave of anti-semitism and anti-italian(ism?) then its personal. As an ital I'm not goin to let the jews or my fellow itals or myself for that matter take shit from the play-doh sheeple who are influenced by this movie.

Fuck this movie. People talk about it too much. People take it too seriously. And it is going to start some shit here!

[Solomon]

27. This is what I saw when I watched the movie.

The first principle that must be understood is that Jesus was a white man. Yes Yes. Jesus was a white man. After all this time, and people talking about "accuracy", I was shocked to see a Tom Cruise look-a-like as Jesus Christ. He was the ONLY anglo looking white person in the entire movie. I am reaaly really tired of the relentlessness of images of Jesus as white.

All of the male jews in the movie were hostile looking and when Jesus was doing the perp walk, the only people who seemed to really care were crowds of women.

The subliminal message that I saw was that the white man is beseiged by the other peoples of the world. Beaten to a bloody pulp. The world's greatest victim.

Fits in very nicely with Bush's current agenda, america as victim. No country has suffered more than america when 9-11 happened.

Fits in nicely with america's blood lust. When we used to lynch people we hollered "remember the crime" at anyone who questioned the evidence. I still hear that now from 9-11. "Have you forgotten what happened on 9-11"?, etc. etc.

Jesus IS white supremacy. His picture has been mass produced, overhyped, forced down the throats of people all over the world by missionaries who led the way followed by armies.

Just like the hypocrisy of Bush who wears the mantle of a "born again" to hide his crimes, the idea of JESUS put a lying face on the horrors of white supremacy. The whole world has been taught that God is a white man in the sky.

There is no other message at all in this movie. The violence borders on pornography.

Alas, poor poor white man. He deigned to come down and save the world. But here he's being beaten to a bloody pulp. Damn the ingrates. Don't they know that He is the only way? No man may come to the father except through him. The savior of the world. Why are people now doubting that white supremacy is the savior of the world?
Can't you see what sacrifice the white man made for you?

[Desertrose]

4. seriously...how do we really know what we are watching anymore

with technology advancing so rapidly - they could put ??? in the movie.....
I wonder too about the fact its captioned....that has to have an effect somehow....people not reading and only getting visuals?? or getting the message ina different way? Yeah, my radar has been up on this whole thing since the media started its over the top hyping.....

good luck checking this out...keep us posted on your findings and feelings on it.

Peace
DR

[ngGale]

6. I hope you are wrong too but...

this movie gives me the same reaction. Sheep led to where? It led a lot of the South to Bush overnight.

[Hekate]

7. Gibson's movie fits in the tradition of medieval Passion plays

Medieval Passion plays were theater with an agenda. The old civilized pagans (i.e. Romans and Greeks) had a well-developed dramatic tradition that included a wide range of subjects both tragic and comic, but it was discouraged by the rising Christian church as being, well, um, pagan. The barbaric and peasant pagans of Europe were largely illiterate; when they were converted to Christianity they were still illiterate.

I'm not sure at what point the Passion plays arose, but they were a popular tool for religious indoctrination and a means for ordinary people to viscerally experience one of the defining moments of the Jesus ministry: his death, which was supposed to be the reason God sent him to Earth in the first place. God sent Jesus to Earth (1) to preach, (2) to be murdered, and (3) to resurrect. Passion plays both medieval and modern (yo, Mel) center on (2), but they gloss over the part where God actually wants Jesus to be murdered.

See, that's the part that the Jew-haters don't seem to get very well. In a time when blood-sacrifice of animals was still the industry standard as it were, Jesus was sent by God to be a willing blood sacrifice on behalf of the human race to God. (For some stunning reading, try Exodus 29 in modern English on the consecration of the brand-new Ark: the altar, tent, vestments, and priests are all splattered with blood, and when the offerings are burnt they provide a soothing odor to the Lord.)

So, sure Mel Gibson's film is his interpretation, but he insists it's based on a literal reading of the Bible, and it seems to me it falls in a well-established medieval tradition of visceral experience devoid of any scholarly nuance. The people who attend his film for religious reasons (as opposed to film reviewers and S&M afficionados) are going for a visceral experience of suffering -- and absent the nuance, I think a lot of them will come away looking for someone to blame.

If the film-viewers leave looking for someone to blame for all this suffering, do you think they will shake their fists at the sky and blame God? Or do you think they will look around and see the usual suspects?

Yeah, I thought so too.

Hekate

[MikeGalos]

8. Bravo

great analysis.

[HornBuckler]

9. There Are Some Weird Theories Goin' On Here!

It's A Movie! The Media May Hype It/Spint It/Twist And Manipulate It As Much As They Want - It's HYPE Baby! I Saw The Film Earlier Today - It's Really Good. I'm No Christian, But A Fan Of A Good Movie.

It's A GOOD MOVIE.

emphasis on "movie"

[whirlygigspin]

12. it's a movie!

not since Charlton Heston parted the jello has there been so much exitement!

I'm anxiously awaiting Hollywood's next biblical epic:
"the Passion of the Shneerson"!

popcorn for everyone, say I
Let my people go...to the movies!

[notbush]

13. Gonna make huge bucks

Gibson stuck his D**k out , and did it with his own money.
I saw it today....if you are a BELIEVER it will be striking.
If you are an agnostic or atheist you "won't get it"
The anti-semite thing just won't play with the public......
This movie is going to make megabucks ...the studios will take notice.

[rman]

18. the anti-semite thing plays very well with the reli-fundies.

or are you saying there are no reli-fundies, or that they are not a significant force in US society?

[KharmaTrain]

15. Another Message...

I'm glad to see the references to McLuhan here. I always think he'd go into near spasms to see how prophetic his writings of 50 plus years ago ring so true today...and how those observations he made so astutely have been use in such draconian and perverse ways by the RNC and it's right wing satellites.

I'm strongly convinced this "furor" has been orchestrated...at first by the studio...typical buzz prior to release to build up that huge first weekend (this one) and hopefully make back their nut...afterwards it's all profit. Gibson is a fading star whose attempting to transition ala Ron Howard and others into becoming a "film maker" and to make a statement. Fine. If Catholicism is his passion, show it...which he has. The PR noise that began months ago with the initial "anti-semetism" furor of the movie (supposedly Gibson hadn't even filmed anything and the script was still being revised) is typical in a controversial Hollywood film...going back to Citizen Kane and so on. It creates a buzz that makes people curious to see what it's all about. Another great example of this in action was the Exorcist.

The message I've gotten is how this has been hijacked by the Repugnicans and the right wing as another wedge issue...attempting to seperate the "believers" from the "non-believers". It's the either your with us or against us thing that the GOOP thrives on. By decrying this movie, you are Non-Christian, Un-American, a heathen, a heratic, a lowlife, a commie, a liberal...A DEMOCRAT.

I was chained down to watch Joey Scarborough tonight with two absolute phoneys...James Dobson (He better keep his focus FAR away from my family) and James Robinson. Dobson, the self-rightous prick, uses "us" in refering to Christ's death...for "all of us" (sorry Rev., I didn't sign off on this) and that it's not just the Jews who are sinners, but "all of us". What the Rev. obviously misses is that in his eyes, a Jew is not a person until their "saved" according to his standards. Even if a Jew asks for salvation from Christ's sins...as long as they remain a Jew they are still the sinner. Hypocrite #1

Next was Robinson who stated that "an orthodox Jew he knows" said the movie was ok. Yep, the "hire a Jew"...I'll bet you I could find a "Wiccan" friend of mine who would say the same thing, but that doesn't mean those who practice that faith wouldn't find this movie offensive.

Of course, Joey wouldn't dare put on a credible voice to take on these goons (I hear Dobson is adimant on how his apperances are staged and who appears with him) except for a "movie critic" from the New York POST. Now there's balance for you. To his credit, the critic did say that the violence in the movie was exagerated, but stayed away from the refernces of the Jews being responsible for Jesus' crucifixion and the strong religious McCarthyism the run-up to this movie has unleashed.

This is part of the ongoing culture/class warfare being waged by the religious right to dictate their will over the legislative and social mechanisms in this country...and they've never been so bold. They know they've got a "friend" in the White House, control of the House, a lame Senate and a greedy media that loves the hate this issue generates (Joey was besides himself in joy when he unleashed Jackie Mason against Bill Donohue...nothing better than watching a Catholic and a Jew beat up on one another for that WASP).

These preachers in wolf clothing are a real danger to this nation and must be kept in their proper places...out of the public square!

[NJCher]

16. vicarious suffering

Interesting that you should bring this up because I've been wondering if Gibson knew (consciously or otherwise) what a rich vein he was tapping into with this suffering bit. Some people really eat this up, for reasons completely unknown or unfathomable to me.They lovvvvvvvvvve to watch someone else suffer. Why? You got me.

But look at the history of the church--it is replete with images of suffering. I am sure some psychologist could explain it. Vicarious suffering. What's the attraction? What does this (psychologically) do for people?

Hekate, you seem to have a good handle on this. Would you venture an answer to my question?


Cher


on edit: after re-reading this thread, could one say there is a great deal of suffering going on now in our country and the Christ character serves as a means of vicarious expression of suffering?

[Hekate]

22. "Suffering" is a richly complex subject in the Catholic church

Buddha's trenchant observation was that life is full of pain and sorrow; different traditions obviously have different ways of addressing it. Early Christians had a struggle with gnosticism over this issue: the gnostics held that Jesus transcended his suffering when on the cross, that his spirit rose above his body and no longer felt pain. Other Christians were being persecuted and tortured by the Romans, and Christ's suffering on the cross actually gave their own torment meaning and a greater context. For a variety of reasons the gnostics fell out of the mainstream of religious history, but the question of suffering and the meaning of suffering was one reason: transcendence is certainly a part of the spiritual experience for some people, but to deny the reality of physical suffering will not do for most. When my mother was a parochial school student she was taught to "offer up her pain" to God--she told me this once in context of her childhood dentistry, which was very painful indeed. It is a way of making meaning out of pain, whatever else one might think of it.

Right now what most Americans suffer from is spiritual pain. We are no longer assaulted by the Black Plague, pillaging Vikings, Inquisitors, famine, and high infant mortality. Certainly we will all die, but it's not the same as in previous centuries. What we have is spiritual pain, and we are afraid. We are afraid of terrorists, AIDS, cancer ... some of us will encounter those things, but not the majority of us. We are afraid of the destruction of social order and other things under the heading of "values." This goes for all of us, whether Freeper or DUer, whether fundamentalist or progressive.

Catholic visual art is rich in images of Christ's suffering, and Gibson draws extensively on that. His claim of using only the Gospels as his source is somewhat disingenous, given how closely his imagery adheres to art that goes back centuries but not to the Gospels: the nails through the palms, for instance, exist in paintings and sculptures but are not really feasible in life --the nails undoubtedly went through the wrists, where the bones would support the hanging body better.

We want our suffering to have meaning. Wherever people are deeply oppressed, missionaries find fertile ground. There's meaning, and the promise of a better existence in the next world.

The issue I have with Gibson's Passion is his lack of nuance, and the uses the passions it stirs up will likely be put to. From the sounds of it, two earlier films may offer much more to think about: The Last Temptation of Christ and Jesus Christ Superstar. They took a lot of heat because they dared to go beyond simple piety and devotion, and they both took Jesus off the static imagery of the cross and into a fleshly life in relation to other humans, and then asked what THAT meant.

There's another strand though, and it's anybody's guess where it will lead. In the past twenty years devotion to the Virgin Mary has had an incredible resurgance. You know, the woman they built all those Notre Dame cathedrals in honor of? The one whose statues got tossed out of the churches in the Protestant Reformation, and who mostly shows up at Christmas hanging out in the manger scene? Pilgrimages to old sites in Europe have been growing, especially to the "Black Virgin" sites, and in the US there have apparently been uncounted "Mary sightings," images on windowpanes and whatnot. The smallish town of Santa Maria, CA has become important to a lot of people because the name seems to evoke some deep meaning for the future.

This return of feminine energy to our experience of the divine is something experienced by a lot of women in the feminist spirituality movement, and goes by other names. The Mary phenomenon is certainly part of that, but is important in a different way because she attracts both men and women, and is a strand of the mainstream. Her place was always as nurturer (portraits of Mary breast-feeding the infant Jesus), as obedient daughter/spouse ("Let it be done unto me"), and as bereft mother (the Pieta, Our Lady of Sorrows). I'm not sure how that image has evolved, but she's clearly important.

This just now occured to me (I'm going to have to think about this some more) but I think interest in the Virgin Mary in our time certainly looks like a counter-current to the rise of Dominionism/Christian Reconstructionism. Hmm.

Cher, I don't know if I've even come close to what you're talking about! I just got a look at the clock, and it'd clear to me that my brain wanted to go to sleep some time ago. I just hope it didn't do that while my fingers kept typing. Whatever, it was nice to not be raving about BushCo for awhile!

Hekate

[NJCher]

29. thanks, Hekate

Combine that with your other post and I do believe there's an answer there.

Much food for thought.


Cher

[Dogmudgeon]

17. "Christian" Pornoviolence and children

Pick up one of James Dobson's books on "Christian" child raising. They are basically S&M spanking manuals. He has charts and graphs that rate different methods of "spanking" by age, seriousness of the "crime", and type of pain inflicted.

Susannah Calvin (wife of John Calvin) wrote, in a letter to a young friend of hers who had just had a baby, that she should start "chastizing" the child at around 18 months -- whipping the infant with a switch.

The Roman Catholic church has had a long romance with flagellantism (members of Opus Dei may whip themselves) and have not been slow to use corporal punishment.

This is an old seam in the dark mine of the Christian psyche. I can only guess that the reason for all this religious facination with pain comes from the archetypal story of Jesus being tortured to death by scourging and crucifixion. It's as ghoulish as anything that came out of Indo-European paganism, but far more successful.

So you can bet that, in the same week that Howard Stern was pulled off the air by Fundy-controlled Clear Channel for "obscenity", a lot of Christian children are going to be sent to see this movie.

--bkl

[Maeve]

19. Re: the use of languages

I believe Gibson did that to give the movie "realism" and "authenticity"--his subtext was "This is what REALLY happened" and encourage the glossing over of his inaccuracies (like the depiction of Pilate, a man known as vicious in a vicious time).

[G_j]

20. question

I have not had the time or fortitude to read through all the "passion" discussion, but one post stated that the movie neglected to include Jesus saying, 'Forgive them Lord they know what they do.'

Can anyone who has seen the movie verify this?

[Atlant]

21. Maybe they'll remake "Triumph of the WIll", with George starring. (NT)

[arendt]

24. You mean George Will? Who was "separated at birth" from Heinrich Himler?

<off topic>

The fastidious, nasty, bow-tied(always a sign of
deep inner wierdness) uber-courtier always
look like the reincarnation of Himler. All you
have to do is put a moustache on him. He already
wears the little circular, rimless glasses; and
he wants to send his enemies to the gas chambers.
Whereas, he himself won't get his aristocratic
hands dirty.

God I hate that sanctimonious prick and his
faux affection for baseball.

<end rant>

arendt

[Az]

23. Keep in mind they did not want to include the subtitles initially

It was only after pressure from the distributors that they agreed to include the subtitles. They claimed everyone knew the story and they simply wanted it to be as it was. The focus has always been the violence inflicted on the man.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mainer]

26. "Christian snuff film"

That's how one reviewer described it. He also mentioned it was for the S & M crowd.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

28. yes, if you play the soundtrack backwards, it says...

"Go to church, say your prayers!"

[On the Road]

30. The Reason for the Languages

is that Bible-believing Christians have an enormous hunger for "authenticity". For example, there have been a flood of Bible translations in the last 30 years, most of which promise to be the closest one yet to the actual Hebrew or Greek. Many, many churchgoers feel their religion is sanitized and removed from the vibrancy of the Bible.

That's OK. I kind of like that.

What IS disturbing is that Jesus is played by a very Caucasian actor. I'm sure that Mel Gibson was drawing on Catholic tradition. James Caviezel does look like a lot of traditional European depictions of Jesus. But it's very telling that Jesus' race is omitted in the search for authenticity.

[INTELBYTES]

31. You've been watching to much "X-Files"

:tinfoilhat: :eyes:

[icymist]

32. Actually, I don't care too much for main stream television.

I am familiar with the show 'X-Files' but, never really watched it.