BRILLIANT point about 'The Passion...

[Larry Gude]

...in the Post...a reader sends this:

How would Jesus look?

One controversial aspect of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" that hasn't been much mentioned is the ethnic features of Jesus, played by Jim Caviezel.

Mr. Gibson stressed the "authenticity and realism" of his film, and yet he has perpetuated the ethnocentric portrayal of an Anglo-Saxon Jesus.

If Mr. Gibson went to all the trouble of making the characters speak Aramaic, shouldn't he have cast a Jesus with Middle Eastern features?

How would the audience have received a Jesus who, nowadays, would be singled out for a security check prior to boarding an airplane?

RUDDY WANG

Washington

If anyone else mentioned this, it's still a GREAT point.

Anyone wanna take a stab at it???

Didn't Jesus look more like Osama Bin Laden???

I raise this because Gibson himself HAS made a huge deal about the authenticity but so far, from what I hear in reviews, is only offering 90 minutes of brutality without defining the threat he posed.

Thoughts?

 

[willie]

This has been discussed many times. My personal opinion is that the depictions of Christ in this country are aimed at Caucasians and a leading man that looked like any arab just wouldn't sell tickets.

 

[Larry Gude]

Yep...

...so what does it say about the religion or the movie if accuracy is intentionally set aside for promotional reasons?

 

[willie]

Re: Yep...

Originally posted by Larry Gude
...so what does it say about the religion or the movie if accuracy is intentionally set aside for promotional reasons?

Is Evangelism a possibility?

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by Larry Gude
If Mr. Gibson went to all the trouble of making the characters speak Aramaic, shouldn't he have cast a Jesus with Middle Eastern features?

You mean he didn't have a rag top, grenade launcher, or AK-47?

As the Middle East is where Europe, Asia, and Africa kind of all come together, who is to say what he looked like?

 

[sleuth]

Re: Re: BRILLIANT point about 'The Passion...

Originally posted by Ken King
As the Middle East is where Europe, Asia, and Africa kind of all come together, who is to say what he looked like?

 

[Larry Gude]

Yeah...

...I am profiling.

What's next? Kunta Kinte played by Mel Gibson?

I love Mel though I don't know him personally. The thing is, everyone I've talked to who has seen the movie (which I will go see) says the same thing: Gore fest.

What we got here is a person, who looks like symbol of the west, born and raised in the greater middle east beaten, flailed and mauled so bad that he would have died long before he ever got hoisted onto his cross.

One person said that you really couldn't tell what Jesus's ethnicity was (Jew if Sunday school serves me still) because he was a walking pile of raw hamburger.

I think this movie is great because so many people are up in arms about the truth. It is a riot because all these hypocrites are up in arms, screaming 'heretic'...screaming for blood...just...like...2000 years ago.

I'd just like to see a reality based movie as real as possible and question why it wasn't more accurate as to what Jesus actually, most likely, looked like.

 

[rebeka]

Re: Yeah...

Originally posted by Larry Gude

The thing is, everyone I've talked to who has seen the movie (which I will go see) says the same thing: Gore fest.

Do these people have a problem with it being a 'gore fest'? I can't imagine an accurate depiction all cleaned and bandaged. I got a call from a rarely heard from christian nephew last night who had just seen it and was so moved by it that they had to recommend it. And he warned us about just how accurate it was.

Re: the race of Christ - a hundred katrillion pictures on Grandma's walls can't be wrong!

 

[Larry Gude]

No prob with gore per se...

...one the people I talked to is a friend of the kids. He watches all the teen gore slasher pics. Loves it. He said he had to turn away a couple of times where he would normally be cheering.

 

[Tonio]

Re: Re: Yeah...

Originally posted by rebeka
Re: the race of Christ - a hundred katrillion pictures on Grandma's walls can't be wrong!

John Lennon had his Christ look during the Abbey Road period, but Barry Gibb gets my vote for Celebrity Christ Look-Alike.

Some years ago, I had neighbors who were black and devoutly Christian. They had a Jesus portrait that looked a lot more Middle Eastern than European. But he definitely wasn't "black" like rapper KRS-One used to claim. (Did he mean that Jesus resembled Africans?)