I think it has more to do with hate, and the power of celebrity than
it does with religion
On Fri, 4 Aug 2006 23:45:54 -0700
alexander saliby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Alan,
Me thinks the bard may have said it best: "Much ado about Nothing."
That Mel Gibson is or is not prejudice is meaningless drivel.
Who gives a rats ass? Certainly not I!
I suggest, if you hold that the man is a bigot and a slandering,
prejudiced monster, you cease forever attending films in which he has
played a part, either on camera or behind it.
This is that old, Christian, Jew, religious thing. I hold with
neither. More to the point, I am extremely anti-Christian, Jew,
Muslim, whatever the hell. When it comes to the different religions
of all those idiots, Semites or not, I say to hell with all of
them!!!
Had I the authority of the wizard, I'd flash my magic wand and
neutralize any and all portions of the brains and the gonads of all
religious peoples.
Come to think of it, next, I'd snuff out that little piece of the
lower brain which causes some Americans to stick that fucking index
finger up in the air while they shout: We're Number 1! Assholes!
But these are merely dreams I have of worldly powers.
And the drivel by the Engler brothers doesn't help matters, it only
heightens the wars on the religious fronts.
Alex
----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Sondheim<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 10:43 PM
Subject: Mel Gibson's True Passion (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 00:37:44 -0400
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mel Gibson's True Passion
Mel Gibson's True Passion
Gibson's vulgar, anti-Semitic rant upon his arrest
for drunk driving last Friday should prompt
reexamination of The Passion of the Christ.
By Francis Engler and Mark Engler
<http://www.DemocracyUprising.com<http://www.democracyuprising.com/>>
On July 28th a long-running debate about Mel Gibson came
to an end with an alcohol-induced anti-Semitic rant
recorded by Los Angeles county sheriffs deputies. As the
actor and director spouted lines like, "F***ing Jews...
The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,"
Gibson evinced a profound and hostile anti-Semitism.
If Gibson were just a movie star, this statement would
be a gossip item published next to Tom Cruise's
embarrassing stab at psychiatry. But Mel Gibson is more
than a movie star. After his movie The Passion of the
Christ became the biggest religious blockbuster of all
time, Gibson advanced as a major international religious
figure. He has been embraced by a wide array of
Christian leaders, from Ted Haggard, President of the
National Association of Evangelicals, to Paul Crough Jr.
of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, who declared in his
broadcast that, "Every Christian MUST go see this movie
and hold Mr. Gibson up in prayer."
Like Mel Gibson, we are Catholics. We come from a large
Midwestern Catholic family. Our father was a Diocesan
priest and our mother was a Franciscan nun who left
their positions in the clergy to get married and have
children. Two of our uncles are priests and a third
attended seminary before pursuing another career. Our
younger brother now runs a religious center for the
working poor.
When the controversy around The Passion of the Christ
began almost three years ago, we were alarmed by the
Anti-Defamation League's warning that the film
"portray[ed] Jews as blood-thirsty, sadistic, and money-
hungry enemies of Jesus." Other critics charged that
Gibson's father had made statements denying the
Holocaust and that Mel Gibson himself had made some
disturbing off-the-cuff remarks. But, at the time, a
wide-ranging group of people defended Gibson.
Beyond evangelical Christians, mainstream Catholic
groups like the Knights of Columbus came to Gibson's
aid. The group's president, William Donahue, called on
his national convention to defend Gibson and The
Passion. Even Jewish film critic Michael Medved decried
the "crucifying" of Gibson and "the reckless maneuvering
of real-life Jewish leaders whose arrogance and short-
sightedness has led them into a tragic, needless, no-win
public relations war."
Now we have to face the truth. Many religious scholars
have expressed concern that the movie tells the story of
the final hours of Jesus' life in a way that focuses the
blame for his death on Jews instead of the Roman
authorities. Others say that the movie fills in many
details about the events of Jesus' death in ways that
reflect anti-Semitic medieval Catholic folklore rather
than actual biblical scholarship. During the release of
the movie, there was a real question about whether the
decisions that Gibson made in making the film were mere
expressions of personal spirituality or whether they
reflected a latent hostility toward Judaism. Now that
Gibson had broadcast such hostility to the world, the
Christian community needs to rethink its embrace of The
Passion as a tool for evangelism.
One can find an instructive parallel between the
controversy surrounding Gibson and his landmark film and
D.W. Griffith's 1915 civil war epic, The Birth of a
Nation, the first blockbuster in American cinema.
Griffith's film, which was adapted from the racist play
The Clansman, by Thomas Dixon, also caused a national
uproar when it was released. Groups like the newly
formed NAACP decried the negative portrayal of African
Americans in the film and the positive historical light
in which it cast the Ku Klux Klan, but their call for
the removal of objectionable scenes in the film met with
little to no success.
Like Gibson, Griffith objected vehemently to accusations
that he or his film were racist in any way, and he was
largely supported by both the film community and the
viewing public. The problem is that Birth of a Nation is
an obviously racist movie, and film historians today
cringe at the thought that America ever embraced it.
Let's hope that, with Gibson's anti-Semitism now on
overt display, it will not take decades for us to come
to similar reevaluation of The Passion.
-- Francis Engler is a union organizer based in
Oceanside, California. Mark Engler, a writer based in
New York City, is an analyst with Foreign Policy In
Focus. They can be reached via the web site
http://www.democracyuprising.com<http://www.democracyuprising.com/>.
The authors thank Allison De Fren for her contributions
to this article.
____________________________________________
portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news,
discussion and debate service of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to
provide varied material of interest to people on the
left.
To submit an article to portside, go to:
http://www.portside.org/submit<http://www.portside.org/submit>
For answers to frequently asked questions:
http://www.portside.org/faq<http://www.portside.org/faq>
To subscribe to the list:
http://www.portside.org/subscribe<http://www.portside.org/subscribe>
To unsubscribe from portside:
http://www.portside.org/unsubscribe<http://www.portside.org/unsubscribe>
For assistance with your account:
http://www.portside.org/contact<http://www.portside.org/contact>
To search the portside archive:
http://www.portside.org/archive<http://www.portside.org/archive>
