Freedom's Fidelity

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Passionate Hatred

Mel Gibson's "The Passion" is breaking box office records in the Middle East. That surprises me about as much as reactions like this:

Hanan Nsour, a veiled, 21-year-old Muslim in Jordan, came out of "The Passion of the Christ" in tears and pronounced her verdict: Mel Gibson's crucifixion epic "unmasked the Jews' lies and I hope that everybody, everywhere, turns against the Jews."

Somewhere, Mel Gibson's father is smiling.

I haven't see the movie and I probably won't. These days I read enough about real violence and torture, that I don't need to see it movies. I think Stan from South Park got it right when he demanded his money back after seeing the flick exclaiming, "Dude, that wasn't a movie, that was a snuff film!" How does two hours of brutal torture teach anyone anything about the life of Christ? What's in the movie that wasn't previously known? Did everyone just think that Christ got his ass kicked real bad until Mel Gibson came along and showed us that, in actuality, he got his ass kicked really really really bad? What's that supposed to teach me again?

Two more random thoughts:

It's easy to not fear death when you know you're the son of God and you know where you're going when it's all over.

Beatings like that were the status quo in Saddam's Iraq.

posted by Paul  permalink | |