While in the mall bookstore yesterday, I paged through the Official Collector's Edition Book for Mel Gibon's new flick The Passion of the Christ. Goodness -- looks like he took a page from Requiem for a Dream on this one. Shock the audience into a numb stupor and your point will be made. I suppose it's working; one of my former students sent an email to his buddy list (which I'm on) urging everyone to go see it (he even offered to pay if we couldn't afford it).

I guess I can't find fault with Gibson for wanting to show people that Jesus was way cool, but I'd be more keen on a movie about how Jesus chewed out the moneyed interests and urged nonviolent revolution. Wasn't there also something about a camel and a needle? (Of course, it all depends on how you interpret it.)

But the real story about the movie is -- once again -- how lilly-white Jesus and everyone else is in the film. William Rivers Pitt puts it well:

To look at the central actors in this film, you'd think Jesus did his work near Manchester, New Hampshire instead of the Holy Land. . . . The Jesus most familiar to Americans, the Jesus featured in Gibson's film, looks like the front man for an alternative rock band out of Minnesota. Judas in this film is a shorter version of the same phenomenon. White skin, long straight brown hair, decidedly European features -- this is not the Jesus that preached revolution against the Empire long ago. This is the Jesus fashioned by Michelangelo five centuries ago, who used his white cousin as the model for the savior.

The rest of the piece winds up attacking Bush for some reason, but the first part is pretty solid. (Naturally, conservatives are trying to get us to ignore the fact that we always cast Jesus as a white man.)

Random


Dude: John Kerry rocks out with Moby! Everything Is Wrong -- except for Kerry's campaign! I'll bet they're headed to a strip club next. Thanks for the pic, DLF.

Thanks to PR Watch for linking us to Diebold's happy happy website to defend itself against charges that the company's electronic voting machines are unreliable and insecure. I suppose I could make a joke here about write-in candidates, but that seems easy and boring, except in passing.

I bet you don't know much about the darkwing fungus gnat. Well, it's time you did!

TimeWaster™

Buggy Woogie -- steering's a bit tricky, but you'll get it.

Today I'm listening to: Autechre!