ARTelevision

The current media feast over Mel Gibson’s new movie about the founder of Christianity certainly seems to be focused on the large dose of violence served up to its audience. Having been a Catholic school student, I was often instructed to gaze up at the figure on the cross and dwell on how badly the man/god was treated. That was supposed to somehow get a reaction from me besides the one of utter incomprehension I actually experienced.

Now, in interview after interview and article after article, I see this same “argument” dredged up by Gibson himself and the film’s supporters. There were a quarter of a million other Jews who received the same treatment at the hands of the Romans. There have been literally millions of humans who have been tortured as heinously. What special significance is it supposed to have to me that Jesus was horribly treated?

Using the old saw that - well as god’s son, he didn’t “have” to go through it is a post-hoc argument. You have to believe that to have it make any sense.

I guess it just disturbs me to have this old piece of “theology” – the appeal to the pummeled senses – used again in this big-buck mass-media context. IMO, it’s too bad folks seem to be falling for it – the old “hit the mule over the head to get him motivated” ploy...

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