The passion of Mel?

Last week, I watched Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ for the first time. Upon its initial release, I had refused to see it. A colleague watched it as part of a panel of clergy recruited by our local paper, and his report was that it was the most violent film he had ever seen. He’s right; The Passion makes Scarface look like a bedtime story.

So many things troubled me about the movie in addition to the excessive violence. As has been noted by reviewers, Mel lays the blame for Jesus’ crucifixion at the feet of the Jewish authorities, a scapegoating tactic that does not follow scripture. But there’s also not-so-subtle scapegoating of women.

The movie focuses on the last hours of Jesus’ life, and opens in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is praying. Circling around him is a Satan figure who might have been intended to present ambiguous gender, but who is smooth skinned as opposed to every other character in the scene having thick beards. Later in the movie, this figure cradles a baby in what seemed to me to be a reversal of a Madonna and child, a scene that latter occurs when Jesus’ body is cradled by Mary at the foot of the cross.

Mel purported to strictly follow scripture in telling this story, but any cursory reading of scripture demonstrates that he took many liberties. This is the story of Mel’s idea of Jesus, a super-macho figure able to withstand 20 minutes of flesh-ripping beatings. Hmmm...almost sounds like the plotline of a Lethal Weapon movie. One has to wonder if Mel doesn’t understand himself as a Christ-like figure, being persecuted by the detractors of his movie.