I just read a piece on Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ in Entertainment Weekly. I'm a bit confused. The article, if you haven't caught it, is about how this could be Gibson's last stand in Hollywood, as well as that of the actors within the film, specifically James Caviezel, simply because of its controversial nature.
But what is the controversial nature within the film? Basically, there is an uproar as to whether or not it will be deemed—or is in fact—Anti-Semitic. Critics and the layman speculate that there may be an Anti-Jewish message contained within the film, promoting racism, bigotry, and a bunch of other adjectives concerning the Jewish people.
Essentially, they worry that the film may be offensive, specifically toward the Jewish. I ask, what the hell is wrong with the people of this world?
Everything has become unbelievably politically correct. There is no room for offensive material on the planet. Anywhere. While this sounds like a pipe dream come true, it is naive and impossible. It is impossible for something to be purely inoffensive to 100 percent of all people 100 percent of the time. Anything can be deemed as offensive, to the right people. Smoking is offensive to non-smokers. Not covering your face is offensive in certain Arab countries. The peace sign is offensive to people who believe it to mean, "screw you."
Everything carries an offensive nature, even the most subtle of things. Take those damn The Truth commercials. While I understand their purpose, and I believe they are for a good cause, they are also offensive. They insult smokers' intelligence, annoy the hell out of us, and seemingly place all blame for the smoking nation on the tobacco companies, when the truth is that a majority of the blame lies on the smoker. So these commercials are offensive to me, some of my fellow smokers, and the tobacco companies as well. Yet there is no controversy over the offensiveness of this. When you look at it, if The Passion of The Christ is offensive because of the way it depicts Jews and may promote Anti-Semitic feelings, then The Truth commercials are offensive for the same reasons. They are offensive because of the way they depict smokers as ignorant, unintelligent automatons, and they promote Anti-Smoker feelings. Not anti-smoking feelings, which are already rampant and somewhat justifiable, but notions that actual smokers are terrible people. But, I'm getting off-topic.
Back to the movie. The big problem I have with the so called controversy over this movie is this: If it were a movie that was based solely on getting people to despise Jewish people, then I think its unacceptable and offensive. The key word there is unacceptable. However, it is a movie that is supposedly a strong and strict depiction of the Bible, the most well known book ever. And last time I checked, Jesus was a Jew, and he was killed by the Jewish. There really is no getting around this point. The Jewish killed Jesus. Anybody who knows the Bible should not be surprised by this revelation.
Let's compare The Christ to another movie that I haven't seen: Schindler's List. That's the one about the Holocaust, no? Anywho, we see a movie depicting history, whether it is straight-up history or not, who cares? The point is, we see the Jewish (coincidence) being killed by people. Nazi people. German people. However, is this movie offensive because it depicts German people killing others? Not really, because that is what happened. Does it promote anti-German feelings? I don't know for sure, but it shouldn't. Because the point is while the Germans did kill the Jews—and it was a naughty thing for them to do—we do not automatically associate the Germans of today as killers of Jews. It was in the past. Yet, we are supposed to get all high and mighty and offended by Gibson's movie because it portrays the Jewish as the killers of Christ. Which they were. Confusing, isn't it?
I mean, anyone who believes in Christ is going to find out that it was the Jews who killed him. After seeing this movie, there won't be a riot composed of Christians yelling, "we now know that it was you, Mr. Jewish man, who killed our Lord! Why didn't anyone tell us before? Thank you Mel Gibson, for telling us who we should have negative feelings toward; for directing our racist, bigoted opinions, because there is no more racism in the world today since we all figured out that by being politically correct, we live in fear of saying the color "black" because someone might take it the wrong way!"
Personally, I don't think that I am going to be offended by the movie; however, I am already offended by those that will be. Now, if there's something offensive in it outside of what I've ranted about above, then I'm mistaken.