Read other letters about this article

• Monday, July 31, 2006 08:10 PM

  Anti-Semitism, maybe, Sado-Masochism for sure

  I'm not personally qualified to talk about the anti-Semitic elements in the Passion. Really. I was raised Catholic, but I don't give much of a damn anymore, and I'm not qualified to speak about it from the Jewish point of view. I don't know the real history here; I'll leave that to scholars.

  But what I did spot from the beginning of the Passion was the sheer, sado-masochistic horror of the treatment of Jesus. By using the modern filmmaker's technical facilities of simulating an hour of whipping, snapping bones, blood spattering all over the stones, this was a literal exercise in horror.

  Now, as a child, "doing the Stations of the Cross" did have an obligation of meditating on the various torments that a crucified man would have, along with the generosity of Jesus in suffering all this "for us." Thus, there was a sadistic aspect to it, but you had to believe that from the Passion would come redemption.

  But by focusing all of a filmmaker's toolkit on presenting the brutality, Gibson presented us a) with a dark Christianity that even I, growing up in Quebec in the '50s, only caught glimpses of, and b) a kind of Braveheart Jesus who was as shallow as Hollywood can ever be.

  The only detail that reminded me for sure that anti-Semitism was part of the game was the line that was cut from the subtitles but left in the Aramaic, because they knew it was dicey: "His blood be on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:22-25)"

  —Jim H Read Jim H's other letters
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel