David Neiwert on *The Passion*

David Neiwert, who is a journalist specializing in the American Radical Right and does an excellent job of analyzing far-right groups from a democratic perspective (and, yes, I do mean small-d democratic), has posted several times on the issues surrounding Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and the highly dubious publicity campaign around it.

Sins of the father 08/05/03
Passion for The Passion 01/31/04
Push-Polling The Passion 02/02/04
Mel Gibson: Targeting Catholics 02/09/04
Mad Max's Dad: Beyond the facade 02/21/04
Gibson Outtakes 02/21/04

Two things are worth keeping in mind about discussions of this movie. One is that Gibson has deliberately rolled out a marketing/publicity campaign that encourages political rightwingers and fundamentalist Protestant church groups to defend the film, the latter emphasizing its alleged "accuracy." For a low-brow version of that see here. I discussed earlier the article by Biblical scholar John Dominic Crosson that gave me evidence for what I had earlier suspected, that there was something dishonest about the public face Mel Gibson was presented on this.

The other is that there is a movie which can be judged according to the criteria of any movie, but there is also a theological discussion which surrounds it. The film won't send mobs into the street looking for Jews to attack. But the discussion around it has been less than 100% wholesome.