By next week, I hope to get a “comments” function added to VM. Until then, I’ll post any e-mailed responses people have to the blog. This one comes from someone I don’t know. One of my coworkers has forwarded my Passion Play to some people, and it’s begun meme-ing around:
Mel Gibson is no more Mad Max than this guy Gil is Jesus Christ. Perhaps the “Kingdom of God within you” includes the tolerance and wisdom that acknowledges the human inside the actor. That wisdom would also allow that the relationship to worship starts with the idolizer — not the idol. Gil seeing these celebrities as idols and not humans is his problem — don’t you think?
And a long response just showed up this very minute:
Lighten up! It’s only a movie. Haven’t seen it yet but it’s on my list, especially after the crowds dwindle. Mel became MY theologian with the first Mad Max movie. The second Lethal Wepon solidified his position along side St. Augustine, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton.
And since when are whores a bad thing? Profitable business acumen, usually. Highly motivated, usually. And victimless, usually. Besides, who’s to complain if Brittany Spears wants to stick her tongue down the appropriately monikered Madonna’s throat? Certainly not the NASCAR Dads.
After all, the denial-of-sex-as-a-natural, biological function – especially as it pertains to the two women-twins concept – dominates the entire Bush Administration psyche. To wit, John Ashcroft’s throwing a sheet over the Statue of Justice. After reading the Patriot Act, that drapping, his first official act as Attorney General, is highly symbolic and evocative of his trampling on America’s civil rights, not to mention his part in the usurpation Christ’s Kingdom here on Earth.
Gil, I was born American with a French, Scot, and Native American heritage. I was raised Catholic (I’m Lapsed at the moment); I wasn’t born one and I’m horrified by ALL Born Again bigots. Never in my parents home did I hear ANYTHING that suggested that Jews were responsible for Christ’s death. To the contrary, what I was taught both at home and at the mandatory religious classes from first-through-twelfth grades was this: Jesus was a Jewish carpenter who died for the sins of mankind. True or not, what’s not to admire?
It’s clear that you — with the entire Bush cohort — have missed the point. For now, at least, we have the ability to view, read, hear, feel, experience — or not — pretty much everything. Choose as you will, rail against whatever you will.
My suggestion for you, Gil, is to focus on matters that really count: your loss of civil liberties under the guise of Homeland Security, for example. Or to understand what Junior (who should be tried in the Hague for Crimes Against Humanity), Cheney, Ashcroft, Rice, Perle, Wolfowitz, and sadly Colin Powell — are really doing. I do not want to live in a prison, even one as vast as the continental United States; for reference please read Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.”
So, please don’t do anything harsh to my friend, [who forwarded your post to me], or anyone else for that matter. Whether or not my God is within me, I do my best to find the Almighty in a good glass-or-three-or-four of beer, as, apparently, should you. If, however, drinking to excess doesn’t work for you, perhaps another movie that opens this weekend may work: Club Dread. My daughter, who lives in Mexico where this was filmed, has a minor role in it.
Hasta manana,
Pablo Incognito
As my friend, who forwarded this over to me, writes, “I don’t think he’s read anything else you’ve written, Gil.”
And, in the midst of posting that e-mail, here comes one from a buddy I met back in grad school:
good entry.
couldn’t the same thing be said for celebs who become sociopolitical theorists and soapbox firebrands every election year?
It doesn’t really matter, anyway. I’m hoping Club Dread (from the makers of Super Troopers) will dwarf what I like to call “the passion the of the christ” at the box office this weekend.
So it appears the jury is in! If Club Dread manages to bring in more box office than Mel Gibson, I’ll have somehow triumphed. I think. GodDAMN is this a confusing world.
Anyway, in response to Pablo Incognito, be assured that I’m all about frivolous entertainment. It seems to me that this movie (the Jesus one) doesn’t qualify as frivolous. It’s not a free speech issue at all. I’m not calling for the movie to be banned. I’m calling for people to find their interpretation of religion somewhere other than on a movie screen. And if watching someone’s flesh get flayed for an hour is your idea of frivolous entertainment, you should probably seek therapy.