Religion: February 2004 Archive Page

At Home

What do the marketing droids think the audience that comes to see Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" will want to spend money on? What previews will I have to sit through?

I stayed home with the kids while my wife went to see an afternoon showing. Soon it will be my turn. She suggests I go early, to get a good seat. I charge up my PDA before I go.

In the Lobby

The few benches in the lobby are occupied by pods of teens on this Friday night. The line for The Passion is obvious -- few boxes of popcorn or JuJubes are being consumed there. People in this line aren't just hanging out. They look older than your typical movie crowd, though the only movies I've seen in theatres for years have been Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, so maybe I'm just used to seeing younger crowds. Up ahead, a kid with spiked hair and multiple ear piercings chats with a couple in their thirties; another kid has a baseball cap, but is wearing it with the brim forwards -- a rare sight these days.

A table off to one side has a display sponsored by the mall's Christian store. I can pick up a free Gospel of John if I want to know, "What is Truth?" My ticket stub is worth $8 off the soundtrack to The Passion.

The Catholic tradition has a long history of putting special devotional emphasis on the physical sufferings endured by a very human Christ. The sorrowful mysteries of the rosary and the narrative content of the Stations of the Cross are contemporary examples. In the middle ages, the faithful were encouraged to meditate upon artistic interpretations of the events leading up to the crucifixion; these devotions, which nurtured a vivid religious imagination, included narrative material that is not scriptural, such as the miraculous appearance of the image appearing on Veronica's cloth when she wiped Christ's face.

Still in the Lobby

While most media attention has focused on the movie's alleged anti-semitism (a charge dismissed by Maia Morgenstern, the Jewish actress who plays Mary), I've been personally more interested in the way some Protestant churches are responding to what may be their first real encounter with this particular tradition in Catholic devotion.

Informed by a version of the Bible that presents a prohibition against the making of graven images as one of the Ten Commandments (the Bible doesn?t actually number the commandments individually; what is in the King James Bible a stand-alone prohibition of the making of images under any circumstances is considered by Catholics to be a continuation of the first commandment, a warning against the worship of false gods).

The Catholic theological emphasis on the Body of Christ leads to the artistic attention paid to the Crucifixion. Note to self: before posting to blog, copy and paste something here about Affective Piety.

Religious devotion which encourages the faithful to meditate deeply upon the physical and emotional sufferings of holy figures is called "affective piety." ... In their private chambers, using a picture, a statue, or spoken prayers to feed their spiritual imagination, the devout entered into the suffering of Christ, a martyr or some other holy figure with a psychological totality that we today would probably describe as a very extreme form of method acting.

Many modern Christians may be tempted to dismiss or ridicule such devotional practices, yet these same critics may have no problem with the idea of responding with powerful emotion to contemporary religious music or extemporaneous spoken prayer. Meanwhile secular culture provides many opportunities for people to cry over the imaginary troubles of soap opera characters, or to cheer or curse a televised sporting event.

-- "Religious, Political, Economic and Artistic Contexts of the York Corpus Christi Play"

Protestant churches emphasize the Word of God, and prefer their artwork to be more cheerful -- a cross in a Protestant church represents the Resurrection - Christ is no longer on the cross. The Biblical emphasis placed upon Mary in the Passion narrative has also been an historically sore spot. I'm curious as to how Gibson will use Mary in this film.

The lobby is packed now, and the noise level suggests that whatever somberness I detected when I first got here is gone. A forward push begins -- people who have been facing every which way and milling about all take a half step towards the bowtie-wearing ticket kid. But according to flashing overhead signs, all the other shows that start at 9:30 (in two minutes) are seating now , but we are asked to remain n the lobby.

Remember, everyone, the last shall be first. We wait -- locked together in a kind of gel that oozes forwards.

I haven't gotten around to cutting me hair in several months... but as I look at the shaggy manes and thick eyeglass frames on the ushers I have to wonder.... is 70s hair back?

In the Theatre

The first preview is a spoof of Caddyshack that turns out to be a American Express commercial. The audience laughs.

Next is a Coke commercial with a racecar theme.

Next is the movie chain?s computer-animated ?branding? intro.

At 9:45 is the touchy-feely "don't download movies because you'll hurt a stunt guy's feeling" promo.

And the movie previews begin. Yawn.

The historical horse-race adventure Hidalgo.

Robert Redford as the kidnapped half of an older couple in The Clearing.

It?s 9:51 now. Patience is a virtue, but this sucks.

Two Brothers (an animal adventure).

Miracle (the Disney movie about the US Olympics hockey team, back when the Russians were the Evil Empire).

Madison (something about boat racing in a blue-collar town).

Okay, so that?s sports, old love in a pinch, heartwarming animal adventure, more sports, and more sports. That?s how Hollywood is marketing to the audience for The Passion. All the promos try to be intense (really, how intense can a heartwarming movie about brotherly love in animals be?), but they appear to be marketing The Passion as an action film. Go figure.

9:57

After 27 minutes of what I didn?t pay to see, what I paid to see starts.Watch One Hour With Me?In the Lobby: Waiting for Mel Gibson?s ?The Passion of The Christ?Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

I wrote this on my PDA on Friday, Feb 27, but didn't get it online until after midnight. I'll blog about the movie itself soon...

Assumption, though, is too mild a word when it comes to the belief in mental health. The taken-for-granted-ness of this idea ranks with God, romantic love, the nuclear family, the goodness of free markets and the wickedness of Communism. For most people, suggesting that mental health might not exist would be like telling the kind of people who read blogs that they could have a meaningful life without the World Wide Web. The reality of mental health gives those of us without it a motivation to keep embracing pain because it builds character, it is part of the healing process, it will make us better people. --John Spurlock --The Myth of Mental Health (The Blue Monkey Review)

The "you have a right to be healthy" meme certainly works against the Church's "human suffering is part of a divine plan" meme, the latter being an important part of a religious outlook that invites the contemplation of Christ's suffering.

Modern society doesn't have many universally accepted rituals for the preservation of order in our lives, but for those who practice the morning jog, the AA session, Friday night poker, or even the communal viewing of a popular TV show (I used to love watching "COPS," which plays out a metanarrative of restoring virtue and honor) -- these rituals serve much the same function.

In these movies, priests are suicidal, corrupt and/or lascivious. Nuns are heartless and sadistic.

Before you run to your keyboard: yes, I'm aware of scandals, past and present, involving the church. And yes, some of the films listed above are powerful, important works based on true stories.

But a lot of this stuff is just exploitative garbage. And no other religious group gets bashed with such frequency. Can you imagine a similar number of films with Jewish leaders playing villains and moral weaklings? --Richard Roeper --Join the clubbed: Catholics know pain of being bashed  (Sun Times)

As a young boy, I found it very easy to spot when an actor was not Catholic. When a Catholic makes the sign of the cross (touching the forehead, chest, and then each shoulder), inside your head you are saying "In the name of the (touch head) Father, and of the Son (touch breast), and of the Holy Spirit." Well, in truth probably most of them shorten it to "'Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." But there's a little pause when you hold your hand on your chest, before you make the horizontal stroke. When non-Catholics do the sign of the cross, unless they have been coached by someone who knows better, they rush that horizontal motion -- it looks like slashing. So it was always clear to me when an actor was only pretending to be Catholic.