Opinion
 

Gibson's 'Passion' doesn't promote hatred

by S. Arul Sanjeevi

There were quite a few times during the The Passion of the Christ when the word "brutal" came to mind. "God bless Mel Gibson" was what I thought, coming out of the screening. 

It is extremely difficult to avoid being swept up in the swirling stream of opinions about this movie. I am a Catholic, and a conservative one at that. I thought that I too would dive right into the sea of intellectual thought and try to swim around. 

The Passion of the Christ is a typical Mel Gibson offering that wows you more with its powerful imagery and less with its historical accuracy. As his cinematographer Caleb Deschanel's camera moves from pillar to pillar, from rock to rock, from a bird's eye glimpse of the events as they unfold, you are sucked right in, fulfilling the director's penchant for the visually stunning. 

Of course, you catch glimpses of why the story of Christ is called the "greatest story ever told" with its elements of a man's sacrifice, a mother's anguish, a stranger's help, authority's injustice, a friend's loyalty and another's denial and betrayal. You catch glimpses of Gibson's wry sense of humor when Jesus is about to invent a barstool. But Gibson does not stop to linger on any one theme. His calling is elsewhere -- to make a movie that showcases the gore, the brutality, the violence and the sacrifice involved in the crucifixion. 

People have been affected in different ways by this movie -- some found it great, some bad and some others termed it "an experience." I just found it to be a rollickingly good Gibson thrill ride. But then that's how good cinema affects people. But then again, it makes you wonder, what's all the controversy about? Mel Gibson said in a recent interview that he would forgive his opponents. Why wouldn't he? 

After all, Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, started the controversy by claiming the movie had anti-Semitic overtones, could not have done Gibson a greater favor, nor could he have done his own cause greater damage. These comments have led to the film being a $225 million (so far) makeover of movie history instead of what was widely predicted to be a $30 million box office dud.

Hollywood has its own widely accepted, unwritten rules on political correctness. If, in Rush Hour, you had Chinese warlords as the bad guys, then you had to have a Jackie Chan at the other end of the spectrum. In Schindler's List, you had the Nazis, and Schindler served as the good guy. 

There are no anti-Chinese sentiments, no anti-German sentiments in either case. Good and evil are balanced. No one is branded 'bad" and everyone is happy. Going by the same rules, you wonder what's with the Passion that has people shouting from the rooftops. Of course, Gibson has shown Jewish high priests condemning Jesus. But he also shows that not all of them are in agreement. He shows Pontius Pilate refusing to sentence Jesus, but then you can see that Pilate is acting not out of principle, but out of fear.

The most important thing to remember, though, is that Jesus himself was Jewish. How does anti-Semitism figure into that?

Sanjeevi, a graduate student in engineering, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.