February 16, 2004 – Christ at a Theater Near You
“The Passion of the Christ” is a movie directed and funded by Mel Gibson that portrays the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the books of the Gospels found in the New Testament. It has become a lightening rod for criticism and support, with Christians, Jews, Atheists and Agnostics. Some believe the Gospels speak the literal truth of the last hours of the life of Christ, others believe they are more legend rather than actual Gospel. Still others, like me, haven’t got a clue because the New Testament is not really all that relevant to them. (Yes I know, I might be going to hell because I have not accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savoir . . . but that whole discussion is for another rant). All I know is that this one movie has created a firestorm of anger, fear, hope and faith unlike anything I have ever seen. Evangelical Christians, devout Catholics, and many not so devout Catholics and Christians find even the thought of the film inspiring, an affirmation of their faith, while many Jews fear that during this time of increasing anti-Semitism a film depicting any Jewish involvement in Christ’s death will only fan the flames of hate. With that in mind, there are some who question whether the film should have been made, and asked that it be changed, fearing the consequences of the negative portrayal of Jews within the film, coupled with the lack of context explaining many of the events leading up to the last 12 hours of Christ’s life.
Being Jewish, I can appreciate the fact that no one wants to run into an anti-Semite or their hate. I have had my face spat in once or twice, been told to burn in hell for being Jewish, and received a few other not so friendly taunts. I also vividly remember being asked in 4th grade when sleeping over at a friend’s house, when looking at a picture of Christ on the Crucifix on my friend’s bedroom dresser, “Why did you kill Jesus.” To which I said “huh?” To this day I am a little scared of churches, especially big Catholic ones, and we don’t even want to go into the fears I had about the German family living down the street when I was growing up. And, for some reason, it seems like this country is backsliding into old habits. We seem to be in camps, more and more divided, and these divisions are economic, political, geographic. racial and religious. Religion is only part of the problem - and it is at least one we can address head on. Our failure to create channels of communication only create further divisions, where more little Jewish kids are going to be asked by little Catholic kids why they killed Christ. There is a great need in this country for a discourse on religion, and an understanding that while there are many differences among the various religions, there is much common ground.
Which brings us back to The Passion of the Christ: here is the underlying, unequivocal truth according to Deborah: In this country, Mel Gibson is using his money, to fund this movie, and he has the absolute right to make the movie he wants to make, the absolute right to screen the movie he wants to screen, and people have the absolute right to go pay money to see a movie if they want to see is. Hell (whoops, in this rant I should probably say “heck”), I am interested in what the movie has to say and am interested in its message. Perhaps I can learn something from what it says and better understand the source of some of the anger out there.
I have had this discussion on numerous occasions with friends and family alike, but sometimes it is important to have a little refresher: the First Amendment applies to all speech, not just that speech that you happen to agree with. If you start censoring the right of someone to hold and advocate an opinion divergent from your own, no matter how asinine or dangerous you believe it to be, then you are starting down a slippery slope towards censorship, group think and undermining a basic principle of our democracy: you have the right to think what you want and say what you want, so long as you do no harm to others. Don’t you all remember what we were told to say as kids “sticks and stone may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”
A couple of years ago I had a discussion with a good friend of mine who is a very devout Catholic. She was up in arms that the City of New York had put on an art show that included artwork demeaning to the Virgin Mary. My response – so what, it is an opinion, it is a First Amendment right. By including the piece of art in an exhibit New York is not endorsing the view or embracing a belief, it is just treating the artist the same as any other artist trying to express him or herself. She then proceeded to ask me if I were a Jew in Skokie, Illinois, how I would feel about the Nazi party marching in my town full of Holocaust survivors. My response: it is their right as Americans, under the First Amendment, to have the belief, no matter how disgusting it is to me, and they, like any other group, also have the right to assemble to advocate their political opinion. I understand that Skokie was chosen specifically because of the pain and discomfort the demonstration it would inflict on its residents, but the underlying fact is that in this country, you have the right to hold and express unpopular views. The minute you start deciding that only the popular views deserve this protection, then the protection is lost for all views.
Be mindful of what you wish for, because you just might get it. We currently have in office a Presidential Administration that is doing its best to curtail our First and Fourth Amendment rights - do we really need to give them a helping hand to further shred the First Amendment? Sometimes, the long term consequences of our actions are not evident in the near term. Today, maybe we stop a movie about the last hours of Christ’s life, who knows what speech will be squelched next week, or next year. We can not continue down this path of selective enforcement of the First Amendment. Free speech means that it is all free, both the good stuff and the bad, that you would chose to listen to and that you would cover your ears to avoid hearing. If you don’t want to watch the movie, don’t go. Or better yet, get some money together and make a movie of your own. Or, even better, sit down with someone who disagrees with you and talk, listen, learn – if few of us do this, perhaps this movie has done far more good than anyone could have imagined. The message of this movie has always been there, for better or worse, it is time to deal with the message itself, not the messenger.