Month: August 2006

Paula Fredriksen’s TNR review of "The Passion of the Christ" and her account of the politicking ahead of it bears re-reading. Leon Wieseltier also called it like it was:

In its representation of its Jewish characters, The Passion of the Christ is without any doubt an anti-Semitic movie, and anybody who says otherwise knows nothing, or chooses to know nothing, about the visual history of anti-Semitism, in art and in film. What is so shocking about Gibson’s Jews is how unreconstructed they are in their stereotypical appearances and actions. These are not merely anti-Semitic images; these are classically anti-Semitic images.

In my forthcoming book, I pondered whether to include Gibson as an exemplar of what’s gone wrong with religious fundamentalism in America. i kept it in. It was a critical moment in the political corruption of Christianity in this country.

A reminder that some of the sharpest reviewers saw Gibson’s agenda in "The Passion of the Christ" even as others saw it as a political opportunity for the Christianist wing of the Republican party:

We soon see the human agents of his distress in a cutaway shot of Judas meeting with the Sanhedrin, the rabbis and Pharisees who oversee the Jerusalem temple and convey in their every act and utterance the sort of unfeeling villainy you would see in a Punch and Judy landlord. They also, not incidentally, lock firmly into the caricature of Jewish venality and cunning for which Passion plays have been infamous ever since the Middle Ages. The most subtle anti-Semitic trope in the portrayal of the Sanhedrin is also the most telling: the high priest, Caiaphas, is almost never pictured alone. The entire Sanhedrin, in fact, moves continually in a pack – you imagine that they have to navigate through doors sideways – and this casual thronging instinct, together with their boxy period headwear and white prayer shawls, gives the impression that they are ancient Hebrew forerunners of the imperial Storm Troopers in Star Wars. As in George Lucas’s cinematic spiritual fables, the effect here is to depict a grouped set of evil impulses rather than identifiable individuals.

I see also that a friend of Gibson is claiming that Gibson could not remember his anti-semitic tirades because of an "alcoholic blackout". At 0.12?

Thanks for alerting me to it. Make your own mind up. Money quote:

Rather than driving this tormented, self-destructive, deeply disturbed but vastly talented artist into the arms of active Jew-haters (like his father), wouldn’t it make more sense to try to reach out to him at a moment of vulnerability and disgrace? The Jewish community need not approach the tarnished star with a message of "poor baby, all is forgiven" but it makes sense to offer at least some ladder to help him crawl out of the dank pit he has dug for himself. At a time when Israel finds herself isolated as never before, imagine the impact of Gibson announcing a supportive trip to Jerusalem in the company of selected Jewish leaders – with a reverent, remorseful stop at Auschwitz on the way.

How about asking him to renounce the views of his father on the Holocaust first?

Who’s worse? They both deploy bigotry. Coulter has condemned all Muslims and all gays in ways that pander to the basest prejudices against them. She used the term "fag" on cable television recently. She has publicly argued for killing Muslims in the Middle East indiscriminately. She does all this stone-cold sober and means not a word of it. Gibson, on the other hand, clearly deep down believes that the Jews are evil, that they are responsible for all the wars in the world, and his hatred for gay men is well-documented. Both Coulter and Gibson have made a fortune catering to bigotry. But one is sincere; and one is completely cynical. In some ways, perhaps, an argument could be made that Gibson is preferable. So why is Coulter still on television? And where is her apology?

Can someone direct me to any comments made by two of the most fervent promoters of Mel Gibson, Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved? They owe an explanation for their defense of the media mogul from charges of anti-Semitism. All I’ve seen is Hewitt’s terse defense of Gibson’s apology, but no accounting of Hewitt’s own past role in exonerating Gibson from the charge of anti-Semitism. I haven’t been able to find anything from Medved either. Medved was front and center in vouching for Gibson’s lack of anti-Semitic animus. Have I missed anything?

Arianna nails it:

In the same way that ordinary Muslims need to separate themselves from the blood-drenched ideology of Hezbollah, Hollywood needs to separate itself from the odious racism of Gibson. And I don’t make that connection lightly. Remember, during his DUI tirade, Gibson claimed, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." That kind of thinking makes him psychological soul mates with Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has said, "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak, and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology, and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew."

Gibson’s no-longer-deniable brand of bigotry has led to the extermination of millions – and continues to fuel much of the strife and suffering in the world today. Which is why Hollywood cannot sit this one out and wait for the reviews to come in.

It is also a defining moment for American Christianism. Christianists protected, promoted, lionized and harbored this Jew-hater. And they need to be held account for it in a terribly dangerous time.

He won but he lost. It’s so fitting that one of the last communist tyrannies should end with an attempt at a pseudo-monarchy, with power being handed over to his brother. Orwell was right, wasn’t he? We forget now but for so long so many denied it.

He plays the "recovery" card. If Gibson had merely had a DUI and needed help, this would be a non-issue. It would be a non-story. I’m not interested in hounding human beings for their personal demons. We all have them. We have all behaved in ways we regret at times. I sure have. People with addictions struggle every day for sobriety in ways everyone should support. Similarly, as someone with intimate understanding of bi-polar disorder (my mother has endured this affliction for decades), I can only say that anyone suffering from that awful disease merits our love, support and medical help. This applies to Gibson as much as anyone. But that is not the issue here. The issue is his anti-Semitism, his marketing of a profoundly anti-Semitic movie, and, above all, his refusal to disavow his father’s own Holocaust denial. Jewish leaders should refuse to meet with him until he publicly acknowledges the historical fact of the Shoah. He need not disown his father. He need simply state that he disagrees with him in every respect about the Holocaust. Simple, really. So why can Gibson still not say the only words that would matter?

(Photo: Vince Bucci/Getty.)

A reader writes:

I have to say I’m disappointed in your attempt to connect Mel Gibson’s recent anti-Semitic DUI episode with Christians who happened to enjoy The Passion. By no means is Mel Gibson your run of the mill Conservative Republican. In fact, he was very critical of Bush, WMD claims, and the war in Iraq. If you remember during all the media controversy over the release of The Passion, there was some side story about how he was going to team up with Michael Moore on some project. I have no idea whatever became of that. In short, he‚Äôs not a conservative, neocon, or Republican. Mel is Mel. He‚Äôs an odd character that would be more at home with some Catholic Fascist party in the Europe of old.

As you know, most American Christian conservatives are the most philo-Semitic people on the planet. All of the evangelicals I know, my parents included, were sickened by his DUI and the anti-Semitic remarks. Christians liked the movie because it displayed all the agony that Christ experienced in order to save us from our sins….not because some of the “bad guys’ happened to be Jews.

It’s an unfortunate fact, but the Jewish political and temple leadership were responsible for carrying out Christ’s death. Along with the Roman occupiers. If anything, his film seemed to paint Romans as the most brutal people to ever exist. But the heroes of the New Testament are also Jews, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Peter, Paul, etc… Evangelicals love Jews and realize the heroes and fathers of our faith our Jewish because they know their Bible. But you can’t tell the story of the crucifixion without including the fact that the Jewish spiritual leadership & priesthood played a major role. Most Christians see the difference between the Temple elite and the rest of world’s Jewish population.

If anything, I would lightly suggest that Mel’s anti-Semitism is not only from his father, but from the moral relativism that comes from the Vatican on Middle East and Israeli conflicts.

44 percent say: "I never thought [Gibson] was anti-Semitic and still don’t." The power of denial.