> "...Mel Gibson's highly controversial film The Passion of Christ..."
>
> how many people actually regard this thing as "controversial"?
About half the inhabited world, it seems.
> if not
> for the obsessive jewish groups trying to stop it, the damned thing
> would have attracted no more attention than any other jesus film, like
> demille's or the more arty attempts...
Excuse me, but a lot of people besides "obsessive jewish groups" are concerned about it, beginning with a lot of Catholics.
> the need to depict gibson's religious stance as somehow more or less
> fanatic than any other believer in mythology and legend about divinity
> and special relationships to it should be laughable, but is more
> damagingly hypocritical...
Gibson is a heck of a lot more fanatic than the average Christian on the street.
> as far as the anti-Semitism angle, either totally accepted or
> non-existent, depending on fanatic belief system, am reminded of a
> comment made here about preliminary evidence of anti-Semitism being
> found on mars...sorry i forgot who said it, but thanks to whoever it
> was...
You can make as many snide cracks as you want, but I think that the question of whether the film will inspire anti-Semitic activities is a very serious one. We shall see what happens in the next few weeks.
> am interested in hearing about the film from someone with no political
> or religious angle
So what's wrong with having a political or religious "angle"? The making and showing of the film is a political/religious act itself -- Gibson obviously intended it to be. So there is nothing illegitimate about commenting on it from those points of view.
> but for the moment will settle for a sweet young
> co-worker of my wife's...she is a church going catholic, but of good
> enough humor to deal with ribbing about religion from her
> workmates...her comment after seeing the film went along the lines of ,
> very moving, it made me cry...when asked about anti-Semitism, she gave
> a
> blank look and said "what?"...
Obviously she is not only sweet and young, but very naive.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt