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Re: The Last Temptation of Kelvin

Hi,

I'm leaving for the holidays tomorrow, so this will probably be my last message
for the year.  Dang, just when things were getting interesting, too.  :-)
Probably all these conversations will be over by the time I get back.

Kelvin wrote:
> Usually, when I read accounts of the Christian reaction to the Last
> Temptation, I see the Christian position somewhat misrepresented.

No kidding!  Back when the film came out, the local paper interviewed the youth
pastor for my best friend's church.  This pastor was (probably still is) a very
nice, rational, intelligent guy, and he said he expressed his reservations
about the film, explained why he thought the film missed the point and
misrepresented what he felt Jesus was about, etc.  The reporter then asked to
take his picture.  When he smiled for the picture, the reporter said "no, this
is a serious topic.  We don't want a jolly photo."  So, when the article
appeared, the guy who was for the movie had a photo in which he was smiling
broadly and looking friendly, and the photo of the youth pastor was grim and
frowning.  And of course, they left out all of his rational objections to the
film, and just left in the stuff that made him look like a lunatic.  Oy vey!

And the "informative essay" included with the DVD chose to focus on the most
insane and hypocritical critics, rather than address the possibility (as
Scorcese himself did) that sincere people might have a problem with the film.

> It's interesting to me that it is okay to portray Christianity and Christ in
> however negative light you want in movies or books, but heaven forbid you do
> that with any other religious figure!  If you'll remember, about the same
> time the whole Last Temptation fiasco was brewing, Salman Rushdie was in
> hiding, fearing for his life.  His crime?  Casting doubt on the validity of
> the Muslim faith in "The Satanic Verses".

I think there's a bit of myopia here.  First of all, the Satanic Verses does
not cast doubt on the validity of Islam.  It portrays Muhammed (in a small part
of the book, as I recall) in a very, um, "earthy" light, in contradiction to
the more sanctified picture of him that most Muslims hold.  While the Ayatollah
did proclaim a fatwah against him, remember that the Ayatollah is not a
universal Authority Figure for Islam (there is no Pope of Islam), and only a
relatively small fraction of Muslims cared about what he said.  Of course, it
only takes one lunatic with a gun to kill someone, so the numbers are relative;
the guy still had to go into hiding.  My point is that there was a whole
spectrum of reaction to Rushdie by Muslims, as there was a whole spectrum of
reactions to Scorcese by Christians.  And lets not forget back in 1980, when
Attenborough was doing the film _Gandhi_, that there were huge protests, and
Gandhi isn't even the founder of a major religion.  Some people balked at the
idea of an actor playing the role, and said Gandhi should be portrayed as a
ball of light.  My point is that when artists present different takes on people
or ideas that other people find holy, you're going to get a range of reactions,
whatever the faith.

> The Ayatollah, Cat Stevens, and others were waging a campaign of hate against
> him for his book - while at the same time Hollywood was promoting and
> defending a film that made shambles of Christianity.

I don't see quite what you're getting at here with this comparison (and I think
"made shambles of" is rather an exaggeration).  Both works portrayed a holy
figure as more human than he is normally portrayed; both works provoked strong
reactions by those who were hurt and offended; and both works were defended
by artists and those who believe that artists should be able to do whatever
they want.  So I'm not sure what you're contrasting here.  "Hollywood" is
not Christians, and non-Muslims were generally not offended by The Satanic
Verses.  You're comparing apples and oranges.

The thing I find most fascinating about the whole Last Temptation brou-ha-ha is
that the film is clearly (if, as I believe, mistakenly) devout.  This film is
in absolutely no way an *attack* on Christianity.  It may well be *heretical*,
but it is most definitely reverent, and most definitely full of faith.  This
film affirms the existence of God, affirms that Jesus was the Messiah, that he
performed miracles, and it tries to say something about the importance of
discerning and following God's will.  It's not trying to imply that Jesus was
"just a moral teacher", or that Christianity is based on a misunderstanding, or
even (like Life of Brian) that Christianity has gone astray from the original
point.  Like I said, I think the film gets some very important things very
wrong, but I don't think it does so out of cynicism or hostility.  Certainly
Scorcese did not feel he was portraying Jesus in a negative light.  I think a
lot of the protesters missed that point.

Gotta go,  wishing everyone a happy and fulfilling holiday season...
-- 
Don Smith                    Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu        http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

"The disgust and fear that physics stimulates in some people is rivaled 
only by their feelings towards cockroaches."		  - Mario Livio
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