The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/04/16/notes041604.DTL
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Friday, April 16, 2004 (SF Gate)
How To Gag On 'The Passion'/Nine fun-filled ways Mel Gibson's brutal snuff
film makes a mockery of true belief. Clip n' save!
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Perhaps you, like so many across the planet, are more than a bit baffled
by the runaway success of "The Passion of the Christ."
Perhaps you, furthermore, are more than slightly disturbed that millions
have flocked to this bizarre ultraviolent blood-drenched revisionist flick
and that so many actually believe its story to be absolutely true, and
that it just surpassed "The Return of the King" in total box office and is
the No. 8 most successful film of all time and it was No. 1 again across
BushCo's flyover states during Easter weekend and has sold 650,000 books
and 125,000 creepy pewter nail necklaces and you find it all just
incredibly warped and disheartening and what the hell is the world coming
to.
You are not alone.
I have seen the movie. I have endured the spectacle so you don't have to.
Here, then, are some counterthoughts. Nine random points of spiritual
contention and pointy perspective check, a small pile of juicy karmic
stones to toss at the next utterly depressing screening of 'The Passion'
and perhaps at Mel Gibson's very sad and deeply tormented ego.
Why? Because he deserves it. Why? Because this is not a movie. It is a
sad
phenomenon. It is a gross spiritual emetic. It is, clearly, a cry for
help.
1) It lasted more than a full half hour, the central beating scene,
wherein a squad of monosyllabic demon Romans chain Jesus to a stone and
feverishly flay him to oozing pulp on one side, then casually flip him
over like a veal cutlet and thrash the other side until he is nothing but
a puddle of dripping stage blood and flappy flesh and cavernous moans.
You catch glimpses of this revolting cartoonishness through barely parted
fingers and you think, goddammit, there goes half an hour of my vital life
force that I will require much sex and vodka and Buddhism to recover. And
you realize, with a sort of perfect and holy divine clarity, that Mel
Gibson is utterly, thoroughly insane.
2) You are not stupid. You have read The Da Vinci Code. You know damn
well
that the truth about Mary Magdalene -- along with all juicy goodness of
the divine feminine in general -- has been beaten out of Christianity like
joy is beaten out of American teenagers.
And you know that if Mary Magdalene looked the slightest bit like Monica
Bellucci, who plays her in this film, well, Jesus would've been preaching
a lot more of the gospel of oh my freaking God look at those lips.
Instead, Mel focuses on nothing but endless pained female expressions and
Satan as a sallow woman with wicked cheekbones. Touching.
3) You wail, you scream, you nearly call an ambulance when you burn your
finger on the stove while making popcorn. You know for a fact that no
human body, no matter how divinely inspired, could ever withstand so much
gleeful ultraviolent comical blood-drenched flesh rending as poor ol'
Jesus does in the Jerusalem Chainsaw Massacre and not instantly pass out
and/or immediately demand three quadruple Martinis and a fistful of holy
Vicodin. I mean, please.
4) There were children. Small children, most of them under 10, in the
theater where I endured this spiritual mess, their grim parents apparently
believing Mel's R-rated bloodbath would offer up some sort of constructive
lesson, something deep and divine and unforgettable.
And then the whips rended and the blood gushed and the sadomasochism
amplified to a fever pitch and the families all sat there, stone faced and
lost, apparently convincing themselves they were seeing something glorious
and profound, as the hapless kids stared down a future full of bloody
Jesus nightmares and psychotherapy until many years and many prescription
meds later when they finally realize, damn but that movie messed me up.
Remember "Jaws"? Remember how that flick traumatized the entire Boomer
generation back in '75? Same thing. "Just when you thought it was safe to
go back into the church ... WHIPWHIPTHRASHARRRGGGH."
5) Oh right. The nails-through-the-hands thing. Like that's important to
fetishize so explicitly, Mel. You sure you couldn't get the camera a
little closer? Maybe more blood splattered directly on the camera lens as
the mallet slammed down? Maybe you could've jammed one of those tiny
medical cameras inside the bloody hole itself and really hit your point
home, so to speak? Mel, I'd like to introduce you to my close personal
friend, perspective. Here, have a pamphlet.
One tiny anthropological point: You cannot drive a nail through the human
hand and hang a body from it and not have it tear away like some sort of
disgusting hamburger. Did you think of that, Mel? I bet you did. I bet you
wished with all your might you could've filmed Jesus' body being torn from
the nails and falling to the ground in gruesome slo-mo. Man, how much more
fake blood and pig guts you could've poured over poor James Caviezel!
Whee! Two words, Mel: Zoloft. Now.
6) Many argue that, despite the truckloads of blood and unchecked
violence, Gibson's heart was surely in the right place and his objective
was pure. But let's just say it right here and now: bull. You could feel
Mel's fetish for torture veritably oozing off the screen like visual razor
blades. There was no loving intent in this film. There is no tender
message. There is no deep desire to move and inspire and uplift.
There was only, I believe, copious gobs of curiously sad intent to
decimate any notions of gentle divine intimate open-hearted mystical love
and forgiveness you may have once believed Jesus was all about, and
replace them with one very disturbed and sadomasochistic B-grade actor's
very disturbed and sadomasochistic vision of old-school Catholic brutality
and anti-Semitism and blood-soaked guilt. In a nutshell.
7) The answer is, if I recall, about eight. The question is: How many
times can you watch Mel's whipped, blended, frapped, pureed Jesus, his
body rife with so many oozing crimson gouges it looks like some decimated
animal you ran over with your car, twice, with snow tires -- how many
times can you watch Jesus fall to the hard gravel ground with a long, low
moan in terrible blood-drenched slow motion without, finally, stifling a
laugh?
8) This is not Christianity. This is not a message anyone needs. This is
the exact opposite of spiritual progress or insight or gentle divine heat
and if Jesus came back right this minute and was made to sit through this
film, he would sigh gently, shake his short, shaggy hair (long hair was
forbidden by Jewish law -- wrong again, Mel), and, you know, hold a nice
seminar or something.
You think this is how I want to be remembered? This is what he'd say,
calmly and lovingly and more than a little sad. You really think this was
my message? You believe this is what I want the world to focus on, two
hours of deranged apocryphal torture and close-up butchering? Is really
where humanity is still stuck, in bloodlust and shallow emotional
manipulation and cheesy movie tie-ins and $17 popcorn? And then Jesus'
gaze, it would slowly drift away as radiant images of Monica Bellucci
floated before his sparkling eyes.
9) And, finally, Jesus, he would absolutely agree with the following: If
you must see this movie just to see what the fuss is all about, do what I
did: Sneak into it after seeing some other, wildly superior film -- like,
say, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- so as not to contribute
one dime to the Mel Gibson Fund for the Spiritually Hysterical.
Rest assured, Jesus would've wanted it that way.
--
Don't waste your touch, you won't feel anything
Or were you sent to save me?
I've thought too much
You won't find anything worthy of redeeming
AFI - The Leaving Song Pt. II
Dumbya, it's time to dump ya! Vote Kerry '04
aa #2133
ap #19
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