Mel Gibson is nuts — Page 6

would you rather I change the title of the thread to  "beat up Frink and xhonzi thread(was Mel Gibson is nut)"?

Works for me!

xhonzi said:

This thread has been about Tango since the begining...

Irregardless of what "begining" is, xhonzi from Post 19 begs to differ.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Mel-Gibson-is-nuts/post/425824/#TopicPost425824

Warbler said:

I'm not that fond of xhonzi from Post 132 either.

Well, it takes two* to tango.

It takes three to Triango.

I'm more of a da dum tisch person myself.

xhonzi said:

I may be stepping out of line here, but at what point in time will Germans be all offended at the portrayal of Nazi's in WWII films, and start this kind of shenanigans?  (As I write this, I'm sure it's already started, but most people sort of ignore them)  I don't hold any malice towards modern Germans, or even 1940s Germans who weren't Nazis. 

Similarly, the people who were most responsible for the death of Christ, as far as the only records we have have to say, were Jews.  The New Testament tells us that the Romans only crucified Christ because the Jews, their tenants, demanded it.  However, it's not all bad... Christ himself was a Jew as well as all of his Apostles.  They are portrayed to be pretty good guys.  All of the followers of Christ at the time were Jews.  We seem to like them alright, too.

So I have nothing against 30s AD Jews, unless they were personally involved or supported the killing of Christ.  And I have nothing against modern Jews, unless they're sort of proud of what the 30s AD guys did.

And, while we're at it, I don't want anyone blaming me for slavery.  Bad people did bad things in the past.  Bad people today do bad things.  If I'm not doing bad things, I'm not a bad person, right?  That's what I offer to everyone else and what I expect them to offer to me.

OK Xhonzi. You're not a racist. You never had a slave. You love all men of good will. You're a great person. We all agree, so that's not an issue.

But let's take a look at this comparison. Are you comparing NAZI's potentially being upset about portrayals of real history vs JEWS being upset about the bits of the Gospels that has been responsible for 2000 years of persecution, murder and genocide?

It was his use of a line traditionally interpreted as a curse on all Jews and rejected by his own denomination which were I believe one of the main bones of contention (though you would have to be an Aramaic speaker to notice it as even Gibson blinked twice and removed the subtitle).

That and cartooning 'bad Jews' with the usual hooked nosed bad teeth stereotype and 'good Jews' (proto Christians) as looking like they stepped off a biblically themed fashion shoot.

Bingowings said:

It was his reference to lines not in the Gospels and rejected by his own denomination which were I believe one of the main bones of contention (though you would have to be an Aramaic speaker to notice it as even Gibson blinked twice and removed the subtitle).

which lines were these?

TheBoost said:

OK Xhonzi. You're not a racist. You never had a slave. You love all men of good will. You're a great person. We all agree, so that's not an issue.

Whoa whoa whoa, speak for yourself.  If xhonzi was a great person, he would have posted a stick figure doing the tango instead of crumping.

As you can see I have adjusted my previous post after looking the thing up.

The line is, Caiaphas : "His blood [is] on us and on our children!" and it is actually in Mathew (27:25) ergo my alteration (though it is spoken by the crowd some of whom presumably were not Jews and not by Caiaphas himself).

This has traditionally been used in the anti-semitic description of the Jews as "Christ Killers" and the Catholic church has gone out it's way to avoid this interpretation.

It has published guidelines for Catholics who wish to depict the Passion most of which Gibson failed to comply with.

He was urged by a cast member who's father suffered during the Holocaust to drop the line.

The subtitle was removed but the sound is still there.

You'd have to be an Aramaic speaker to notice it though.

Bingowings said:

 

The line is, Caiaphas : "His blood [is] on us and on our children!" and it is actually in Mathew (27:25) ergo my alteration (though it is spoken by the crowd and not by Caiaphas himself).

are you saying in the movie, the line was spoken by Caiaphas?   Cause in the bible, it was spoken by crowd.

Bingowings said:

It has published guidelines for Catholics who wish to depict the Passion most of which Gibson failed to comply with.

interesting,  what do these guildelines say about Mathew 27:25 and John 19:11? 

Warbler said:

Bingowings said:

 

The line is, Caiaphas : "His blood [is] on us and on our children!" and it is actually in Mathew (27:25) ergo my alteration (though it is spoken by the crowd and not by Caiaphas himself).

are you saying in the movie, the line was spoken by Caiaphas?   Cause in the bible, it was spoken by crowd.

Bingowings said:

It has published guidelines for Catholics who wish to depict the Passion most of which Gibson failed to comply with.

interesting,  what do these guildelines say about Mathew 27:25 and John 19:11?

Sorry but I don't have that information.

The United States Conference On Catholic Bishops have this to say about the film :

The scene of the stock frenzied mob uniformly calling for Christ's crucifixion in Pilate's courtyard is problematic, though once Christ begins his laborious way of the cross, Jewish individuals emerge from the crowd to extend kindness - including Veronica wiping his face and Simon of Cyrene helping carry the cross, as a chorus of weeping women lament from the sidelines. However, the most visually distinctive representatives of Jewish authority - the High Priest Caiphas (Matia Sbragia) and those in the Sanhedrin aligned with him do come across as almost monolithically malevolent. Caiphas is portrayed as adamant and unmerciful and his influence on Pilate is exaggerated. Conversely, Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov) is almost gentle with Jesus, even offering his prisoner a drink. This overly sympathetic portrayal of the procurator as a vacillating, conflicted and world-weary backwater bureaucrat, averse to unnecessary roughness and easily coerced by both his Jewish subjects and his conscience-burdened wife, does not mesh with the Pilate of history remembered by the ancient historians as a ruthless and inflexible brute responsible for ordering the execution of hundreds of Jewish rabble-rousers without hesitation. However, while the members of Sanhedrin are painted in villainous shades, the film is abundantly clear that it is the Romans who are Christ's executioners (a fact corroborated by both the Nicene Creed and the writings of the Tacitus and Josephus)

However they also point out that :

Concerning the issue of anti-Semitism, the Jewish people are at no time blamed collectively for Jesus' death; rather Christ himself freely embraces his destiny, stating clearly "No one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John 10:18). By extension, Gibson's film suggests that all humanity shares culpability for the crucifixion, a theological stance established by the movie's opening quotation from the prophet Isaiah which explains that Christ was "crushed for our transgressions." Catholics viewing the film should recall the teachings of the Second Vatican Council's decree, "Nostra Aetate," which affirms that, "though Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ, neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion." Overall, the film presents Jews in much the same way as any other group - a mix of vice and virtue, good and bad. Yet while the larger Jewish community is shown to hold diverse opinions concerning Christ's fate - exemplified by the cacophony of taunts and tears along the Via Dolorosa - it fails to reflect the wider political nuances of first-century Judea.

xhonzi said:

TheBoost said:

 

But let's take a look at this comparison. Are you comparing NAZI's potentially being upset about portrayals of real history vs JEWS being upset about the bits of the Gospels that has been responsible for 2000 years of persecution, murder and genocide?

 *whew* This feels like something of a loaded question, so I'm going to try to step lightly here.

I am comparing modern Germans being upset by someone saying that Nazis were Germans with modern Jews being upset by someone saying that some of the people responsible for killing Christ were Jews.

I guess I don't really buy that the New Testament has been responsible or "the source" for persecution of the Jews.  The Old Testament is full of stories of people not liking the Jews too, so some of that rhetoric pre-dates Christ, or the writing down and widespread distribution of the Gospels.

I understood your comparison and don't think it holds water. True points that the root cause of Antisemetism is complex...

BUT, the Passion Play, and specifically the lines from Matthew have been used repeatedly for two thousand years to whip people into a frenzy to murder Jews with impunity. Vatican II and all the lengthy explanations about who really killed Christ (or why Christ died or this and that) don't change the actual history of bloodshed.

So when Gibson's movie comes out in our wonderful modern post-racial era and repeats what for twenty centuries has been real bad news for the Jews, and makes 600 million dollars, I can understand the Jews not being happy with the state of affairs.

If for the next two millennia people show Shindler's List and then go out and murder Germans, I'll be sympathetic to them the next time it gets remade. Until then I don't really see a comparison.