March 5, 2004
Tina Brown. Whatever.
More on Mel Gibson's The Passion:
Check out the last sentence of this excerpt from a Tina Brown column:
Hollywood pros marvel at how Mel got the world press to report that the pope had endorsed the movie after a Vatican screening. The pontiff's alleged blurb, as supposedly passed on by a Vatican spokesman and later disavowed by his secretary, was five short words long: "It is as it was." (The papal equivalent, perhaps, of "whatever.")
"It is as it was" connotes that Gibson captured the heart and soul of the Gospel. Tina Brown -- anyone following the logic here? -- somehow equates the Pope's statement with that of a dismissive Valley Girl. I sense a whiff of the English variety of anti-"papist" prejudice overlaying standard Mandarin anti-Catholicism.
[Side note: Can Tina Brown and the incomparable Peggy Noonan really be friends??? See last sentence here.]
Charles Krauthammer also attacks The Passion for its portrayal of the Jews as wicked killers of Christ. He has a point, resting his argument on post-Vatican II teaching and the portrayal of Satan moving among Jewish leaders. It is simplistic to say The Passion is not anti-Semitic, for the Jewish leaders in it are indeed villainous and portrayed as not only rejecting the Messiah within their midst but aggressively seeking his annihilation. I think Krauthammer's objection to 10 minutes shown of scourging falls apart, however ... the reality of what happened to Jesus is encapsulated in this segment. And there's no way around the fact.
