Thursday, June 17, 2004

Lies, lies and more lies Does it ever end with this administration? Kerry's campaign slogan should be "George Bush, too many lies for too long." 4:37:42 PM    Comment on my obvious brilliance []

Abraham Foxman - Just SHUT THE FUCK UP for once! While browsing the online site for Heeb magazine I wandered across this letter from Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League and closet publicist for Mel Gibson. Foxman was, without doubt, single-handedly responsible for turning Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ into a multi-million dollar blockbuster. Everywhere you looked there was Abe, beating the drums of publicity for the movie and screaming about Gibson being an anti-semite. I don't know what his ultimate goals were but I can tell you for sure that he fulfilled Mel Gibson's dream of millions of dollars in free publicity and turned what would have been a small, art-house film into one of the biggest blockbusters of all time.                                        Now old Abe has turned his attentions to Heeb, which is a counter-culture, street-based magazine for young Jews. Heeb is hip, it's hot and it's very NOW. In the last issue Heeb ran a series of beautifully done photographs featuring Jesus's crucifixion. The pictures are edgy and subversive in a deliciously sexual and political matter and in the legacy of all good protest art. So what's Abe's beef with the photographs? Well, check out his letter here: We were outraged by the winter 2004 issue of Heeb, which contains a shocking parody of the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ."  Your "Crimes of Passion" photo display - where Jesus is portrayed as a sex object with his genitalia wrapped in a Jewish prayer shawl, and the Virgin Mary as seductress with exposed breasts and body piercings – is deeply offensive and indeed blasphemous to both Christians and Jews.   There is a point when parody crosses the line into tastelessness.  The "Crimes of Passion" feature in Heeb not only crosses that boundary but engages in highly destructive anti-Christian images that are both insensitive and ill-timed.   For us, it is no more acceptable to be anti-Christian than it is to be anti-Jewish.  Coming at a time when a major motion picture is threatening to turn back the clock on decades of positive interfaith relations, your magazine's irresponsible attempt at parody has done a great disservice to the Jewish community. Actually Abe it's YOU who has done a great disservice to the Jewish community by attempting to censor our magazines and by your ill-advised and self-centered campaign against Gibson's movie. In return for your countless appearances on national TV ranting and raving about The Passion the Jewish community received nothing and you turned the movie into a blockbuster. In the future perhaps it may be better for you to stick to attempts to restore Jewish properties in Eastern Europe instead of acting as high censor of the Jews. Your efforts are not within the spirit of Tikkun Olum and your attempts at censorship run counter to both Jewish and American culture. 9:47:17 AM    Comment on my obvious brilliance []

© Copyright 2004 Shane Hensinger.

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