Posted on 03/05/2004 8:34:11 PM PST by Zunt Toad
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ opened Wednesday, and, as expected, most of the average columnist’s pre-release complaints were bunk. Yes, the Jews are portrayed rather harshly. But so is everyone else, and I’m pretty sure that’s the point. I haven’t been to Sunday school since second grade, but I think all the merciless beating of that guy on screen was because of our sins. Maybe that’s just my self-loathing Roman Catholic background, right?
The movie’s details were unimportant for those looking to bash conservative Christianity. Dartmouth Professor Nancy Crumbine sent an e- mail warning her students the day before the film’s release, suggesting they read former-priest James Carroll lambasting Gibson in the pages of the Boston Globe: “He is particularly well qualified as both a theologian and historian to comment on this movie,” she wrote. Once, when controversial films were produced, professors suggested their students watch them and make their own decision. Now: Save your $8 admission ticket and get a free brainwashing. Why bother seeing the film when former Father Carroll will judge Gibson for you?
The truth is James Carroll isn’t particularly well qualified to comment on anything. The drivel he publishes in his regular Boston Globe column demonstrates a keen ability for moral equivalency. In an anti-Iraq war column entitled “America the Destroyer,” Carroll equates the “shock and awe” campaign with terrorism and begs your average pro-war American to consider the damage to Washington, DC if we were on the receiving end. An interesting question, I suppose, if America were a fascist dictatorship ruled by human shredding machines.
For his review of Gibson’s film, in between the usual anti-Semitic complaints, Carroll chimed in on the Passion’s violence. The film is, no doubt, very graphic, but Carroll wrote that many scenes are “approaching the pornographic.” Perhaps he never saw Under Siege when Steven Seagal beat a man to death with his own dislocated arm. Violence in movies is a problem when it’s gratuitous and without intended intellectual reflection. The centerpiece of the Passion—the flogging of Jesus—is not your average Hollywood car chase or shootout, a few minutes of Technicolor explosions to keep the audience’s blood flowing. I’ll wager most audiences left the theater not wide-eyed with excitement, chanting “Christ killer,” but profoundly humbled. Humility might be the problem for people with Carroll’s faith. This isn’t a movie about me; this is a movie about Him.
Still, Carroll can’t get away from the violence, insinuating that the Roman soldier and bystanders are awed by Jesus’ ability to withstand great tortures. Perhaps he saw it without subtitles; the Roman soldiers’ awe is not merely because Jesus can “take it like a man,” but because he prays for his accusers and forgives their horrific misdeeds. The Passion’s Jesus isn’t a postmodern fuzzy-wuzzy Jesus. Gibson’s Jesus suffered, died, was buried and resurrected, something on which Carroll seems unwilling to reflect. Where’s the multiculturalism, the diversity? No scenes where Jesus, Mohammad, and Bubba Free John have a rap session, before joining hands and singing “Candle in the Wind.” No scene where Jesus explains to the kiddies that Christianity is only one color of the religious rainbow—pick and choose your faith depending on mood. If the disciple Peter was played by an Asian girl in a wheelchair and had shared a Q&A with special guest Hermes Fireroots, a Wiccan expert on the practical uses of Magick, Carroll would have given two thumbs up. Instead, Christians like Carroll and open- minded professors like Crumbine will struggle to keep the image of Christ in its politically correct form: A pretty cool long-haired guy with some craaazy ideas.
The Dartmouth Review has had great talent over the years. Dinesh D'Sousa, Laura Ingraham and Peter Robinson (wrote the Reagan Berlin Wall Speech) are all alumni, but it doesn't get a lot of airtime on FR.
If he can't do it his old Man can.
Well, Jesus got it done.
We are blessed.
Now it's up to us.
I am amazed that youth in this nation are rebelling against the forces of fascism, political correctness, and socialist atheism. I am in awe that this is happening.
Passion’s Jesus isn’t a postmodern fuzzy-wuzzy Jesus. Gibson’s Jesus suffered, died, was buried and resurrected, something on which Carroll seems unwilling to reflect. Where’s the multiculturalism, the diversity?
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