More on *The Passion*

While I'm on the subject of Mel Gibson, I wanted to mention some additional post by David Neiwert at his excellent Orcinus blog on The Passion and the issues surrounding it.

The Passion of Mad Max Beyond Braveheart 02/26/04
All bow to Mel 02/27/04
Are the Gospels anti-Semitic? 03/04/04
Prioritizing our 'problems' 03/09/04
Divided Passions 03/10/04

I want to especially call attention to the first post listed here, which discusses the film in connection with some of Gibson's other films. Neiwert calls The Passion "a revenge melodrama - without the satisfying catharsis of revenge."

He believes the movie is anti-Semitic. But he puts that aspect of it into the specific context of the ultraconservative Catholicism that Gibson and his Holocaust-denier father espouse:

The medievalist kind of Catholicism really is Christianity at its most primitive. It harkens back to a Catholicism that wrought not just pogroms but inquisitions. Anyone who understands the dualism of that worldview understands that it is going to be in fairly obvious conflict with modern sensibilities.