March 4-10, 2004

slant

The Passion

Another front in the culture wars.

by Flavia Colgan

As the 2004 presidential race heats up, so do the national "culture wars." And the current battle features some strange bedfellows. Mel Gibson’s stunningly successful marketing techniques for The Passion of the Christ -- which some have compared to a precinct-by-precinct political operation -- have managed to undo the Reformation itself and unite disparate Catholic, Protestant and even Jewish groups. They’re all rallying in a fundamentalist impulse against nuance, against interpretation, against common sense, indeed, against anyone who dares to question Mel. Now that’s one hell of a marketing campaign.

Mel takes no prisoners as he recounts the Gospel according to Gibson. His adversaries are not the Jews, not the Romans, but all those who happen not to believe as he believes. The amazing thing is that the right-wing fundamentalist "Christian" movement accepts his exaggeration of medieval Catholic imagery as gospel truth. The adoption of Mel by the evangelicals places The Passion squarely on the front lines of the culture wars. Not only that, it guarantees its financial success, $1,117,000 on day one and counting. How did Mel do it?

Gibson will probably soon receive an offer from presidential strategist Karl Rove, because his techniques are worthy of Rove's party predecessor, Lee Atwater himself. First, he drew attention to the question of possible anti-Semitism in the film by reaching an agreement with a group of Jewish and Christian scholars to advise him on the script. Then, he leaked their findings (which, of course, contained some "suggestions"). Finally, he accused them of "stealing" the script. But he's been dining out for almost a year on the notion he's being unfairly treated by his critics, liberal journalists, academics and Hollywood executives, of course. Mel and his "small band of believers" galvanized the evangelical Christian groups who have organized to buy blocks of tickets, sometimes as many as 200,000 at a time; sent out promotional tapes to thousands of churches across the U.S.; and mounted an e-mail campaign to encourage "believers" to get out and see the movie within the first two weeks.

But the real coup, which in turn roused the Catholic box office, is having managed to float the idea that the pope saw the movie. Not only did he see it, but, the story goes, he gave it his seal of approval with this hauntingly biblical pronouncement: "It is as it was." It's hard to believe he would think so, since the Resurrection sequence at the end of the film has James Caviezel as Christ marching out of his tomb like an action figure, with nary a word to say. But in a public relations caper, which matches the Bush administration's management of the weapons of mass destruction "evidence," the pope's supposed approval worked its way through all of the media, only to be finally disavowed by the Vatican. But who knows about the disavowal? Only those who read the fine print. That's the mark of a successful bit of mischief.

Gibson has managed to make it seem as if his fanciful potpourri of Gospel incidents has the patina of Gospel truth, and that anyone who questions the film is in fact questioning Christianity itself. Any negative comments about the choices he makes as writer and director are immediately disqualified: Those who make them are liberal journalists, academics are UNBELIEVERS.

Gibson's belligerent self-righteousness echoes another "true believer" struggling to motivate the same broad base of troops: George W. Bush. His black-and-white, "faith-only" based (no evidence required), good vs. evil approach was first deployed against the United Nations and its wish to avoid major calamity in Iraq. Now, it's being applied on the home front against gay marriage. Gibson and Bush have a lot in common -- in their crusade against their critics, it's the strength of their convictions that prove their point. Who needs to look at the facts? In fact, who needs to think at all?

Therein lies the danger in silence, in not standing up and questioning Gibson and Bush on their logic, their rationale, their facts. If we in the United States allow our politics to become simply a matter of faith and degree of conviction, then we will have been much more affected by the fundamentalist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, than any of us would like to admit.

Flavia Colgan is a political consultant and on-air commentator. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (800 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper editor in chief, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila. PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.

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