Crowds and protests greet Passion. Mel Gibson's controversial The Passion of the Christ takes $20m at US box offices in its opening day, a report says. [BBC News | Entertainment | World Edition]
I'm not a religious person, but I think I have more respect for religions that discourage depictions of their godhead. It seems to me like if you were a true believer, you wouldn't want your god debased by having him, her, or it depicted in a movie, especially one as crass and opportunistic as Mad Mel's The Passion of the Christ. What happens when people depict their god is that they distort the facts; in this case, Jesus was black. Even the Bible acknowledges that.
The reaction I expected this film to receive (and any sentient being expected, I'm sure) is precisely the reaction it seems to be getting: Fundamentalists emerging from theatres, their eyes filled with tears as if they have just witnessed something REAL, and not a film by the star of What Women Want.
A moron from Toronto explained why he took his 6- and 10-year-old children to see this Restricted film full of brutal torture and bloodletting:
"I had to show them what Christ did for them," he said later in the lobby of the Famous Players Coliseum in Scarborough. "When they see it with their own eyes, they can relate to it."
Though touted by some as one of the most violent films ever made, Liscio and his wife, Glenda, felt compelled to share the experience with their children.
"Other movies have senseless violence," he said. "But this is reality, this is what really happened and we had to show our kids the truth."
No, you fucknut. For starters, if you wanted something that even somewhat resembles an historical account, you would have to settle for a dark-skinned Jesus. As the New Black Panther Party rightly points out:
"Strangely absent from the debate is one very basic inaccuracy which has been long promoted in order to bolster white supremacy and maintain a revisionist history that is beneficial to only people of European descent," said Malik Z. Shabazz, national chairman of the New Black Panther Party in a statement Tuesday.
"This purposely omitted fact is that Jesus was not a European white man. Jesus Christ was a black man - a dark skinned Hebrew Israelite from Northern Africa and even the only Biblical physical description confirms this (Rev. 1:14)," said Shabazz in a statement.
If these religious fundamentalists are so concerned with the literal truth of the Bible, then why don't they believe the Bible's own description of Jesus? Or the obvious anthropological evidence of what folks living in his part of the world at that time would look like?
Akbar... pointed to Revelations 1:14 and 1:15 as well as Daniel 10:6.
"His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; 15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters." (Rev. 1:14 and 1:15)
"His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude." (Daniel 10:6)
"Not only does this film wrongfully depict Christ as white but all the disciples and Israelites are people of European descent, which presents a historical and physical impossibility," Shabazz added.
But, hey, historical and physical impossibilities is what being a "true" believer is all about! A true believer like Anita Sarkissian, cited in the Toronto Star article above...
In Canada, where the film was shown on 252 screens, the numbers will be bolstered by people like Anita Sarkissian, 20, who saw the film twice yesterday and has plans to go again this weekend.
"I'll keep seeing it again and again until it comes out on DVD," she said.
Her mother, Salwa Sarkissian, calls it her "new Titanic," a film famous for its ability to draw repeat viewers.
At least some of the Christians have a more humane response:
Henry Corbeil, a self-described Christian, left the theatre shaking his head in disgust.
"Terrible," he grumbled. "Shocking. Nothing but brutality.
"There's no need for it."
Lisa Judge agreed.
"I feel depressed," she said after leaving the theatre. "He (Gibson) went overboard with the cruelty and violence, and I think Mel Gibson is a bit of a sadist."
As is anyone who would sit through this crap again and again and again... until it comes out on DVD.
5:11:55 PM 
|
