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Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this one from BBC News:

Passion ignites world audiences
The Passion of the Christ, which has aroused controversy around the world, opens in UK cinemas on Friday

This article references one of my favourite web sites, Ship of Fools, so I have taken a look at their Passion coverage. The first article is a must-read:

Gory, Gory Hallelujah
Steve Tomkins on The Passion, violence in films and evangelical doublethink

Was it not a bit violent? Ah, yes, but, you see. "The violence is intended not to titillate or entertain, but to emphasize the reality of the unspeakable suffering that our Savior endured on our behalf." The assumption that no other violent films have a similarly serious purpose because they don't feature Jesus is breathtaking.

I was going to reference the next article on Ship of Fools here, but it is so good that it needs to be dignified with a blog entry of its own.

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Thanks to Mark Elliott for this; Bible and Interpretation have added another article to their Passion of the Christ essays page:

A Judaic Reading of the Passion Narratives for Mel Gibson to Consider
A secular, juridical as opposed to a sacred, theological reading of the passion narratives: what is the difference?
Jacob Neusner

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The Passion of the Christ is released in the UK today. The film has prompted a discussion on BBC Radio FiveLive this morning, underway as I write. Some other recent news, with thanks to Helenann Hartley:

Head to head: The Passion
Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, which is out in the UK on Friday, has provoked major religious disputes over its message and accuracy. BBC News Online gets views from the editors of Jewish and Catholic publications in the UK.

The first view is given by Ned Temko, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, and it features the now standard (but I think misguided) claim about the violence in the film, "an orgy of violence", "sado-pornography" and so on. The second view is given by Josephine Siedlecka, editor of Independent Catholic News and claims that the film is not anti-Semitic, a view only occasionally heard in the media; this is what she writes:

Jesus and Mary were, and are in the movie, Jewish and the same goes for Jesus' 12 apostles.

Gibson's beautifully-drawn character of Simon of Cyrene, who helps Jesus carry the cross, is also Jewish.

While some high priests condemn Jesus, Gibson also shows others walking away saying his trial is a sham.

Many Romans are also depicted as sadistic brutes. The one consistently evil character is the Devil - an androgynous figure never far from the screen.

At the end, we see it defeated, although this could have been more clearly spelt out.

I think I disagree with the last statement -- the extraordinary shot after Jesus' death of the devil cast to the pit of hell is, for me, a high point of the film. But while I think it is not very helpful in this context to point to the fact that Jesus and the Twelve were Jewish, it is good at last to see someone pointing to the way that the character of Simon of Cyrene is drawn. When I went to view the film for a second time this week, I looked out carefully for Johannine style characterisations of "the Jews" of the kind that some critics have levelled against the film (e.g. Julia Neuberger) and there are none -- not even a hint. Indeed the only character specifically characterised as "Jew" -- and I know I have made this point before but it is worth making again -- is Simon of Cyrene, one of the most sympathetic characters in the film.

Passion prompts murder confession
A Texas man has been prompted by Mel Gibson's Passion film to confess he killed his girlfriend, a police spokesman has said.

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I obviously spoke too soon earlier. Peter Bradshaw's review of The Passion of the Christ is published in this morning's Guardian and he does not have a good thing to say about it:

The Passion of the Christ
Peter Bradshaw

It's certainly ambitious and technically proficient, but only very moderately acted and turns out to be an incredibly obtuse piece of macho-masochism, overlooking Jesus's message of love and his human complexity in favour of a bizarre make-up bloodbath, turning his body into a gory lattice of latex weals, cosmetic stripes and prosthetic wounds which proclaim their lurid and ridiculous fakeness to the very heavens . . . .

. . . . . Gibson also has ridiculous devils and Satanic apparitions popping up all over the place, whose appearance he has plagiarised from The Omen and Don't Look Now. Is it too much to ask where the spiritual dimension has disappeared to? Where is the message of love, and hope? Where is the compelling poetry of moral grace? Does all of it have to be swept away in a tsunami of fake gore?

Gibson offers brief flashbacks to episodes like the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper, hinting in the most superficial way possible at what it has all been about in the first place - before we smartly return to Jesus's ongoing steak tartare nightmare, whose horror is repeatedly undermined with cutaway reaction shots of Mary (Maja Morgenstern) and Mary Magdalene (Monica Bellucci) doing their unvarying sorrow ing face to the accompaniment of syrupy-sad music.

But it seems to me that Bradshaw has missed the point of the flashbacks to episodes like the Last Supper and the Sermon on the Mount, which are to drive home repeatedly the very message Bradshaw does not find in the film, love of enemies, prayer for persecutors, laying down one's life for one's friends, forgiveness. The juxtaposition of this specifically chosen teaching with Jesus' own attitude to his suffering is one of the film's most memorable themes.

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I am just sending out the invitation for the British New Testament Conference 2004. If you are not on the mailing list, the invitation is also available here; and the booking form here. The conference this year will be the 25th anniversary of the society and it is hosted by the University of Edinburgh. For details, see the British New Testament Society web site.

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Thanks to Michael Pahl for this very negative reaction to The Passion of the Christ from a fellow Brummie:

Scandalous travesty of the gospels
The Rev. Stephen Barton, Chaplain to Birmingham Women's Hospital, emerged from the cinema feeling sick and angry.

This quotation will give you and idea of the tone of the review:

Many scenes are stereotypical “Jesus film” stock. There is a flashback to the sermon on the mount, which for me recalled The Life of Brian, but the best Brian moment was the release of Barabbas (again, dubious historically), as the latter’s glee is truly comic.

The other “joke” in the film is in a flashback to Jesus in his workshop turning out a three foot high table. Mary asks who it’s for. “A rich man” says, Jesus, his eye, like Gibson’s firmly on the market. “Must be a tall man” says Mary and she doubts whether anyone will every want such a thing. “It’ll catch on,” says Jesus.

It’s incredibly unfunny, and also racist. Still in Asia most people use low tables or none for eating. But here is Hollywood’s Christ, Founder of Western Civilisation.

Well I thought that scene both funny and delightful (and the line is actually Mary's, "It will never catch on"). To call this scene racist is a serious overreaction, to say the least. It is also not clear to me why the Sermon on the Mount scene would recall Life of Brian. There is nothing in that scene's composition or content that I found reminiscent of the famous scene from Brian.

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And today's Independent asks a handful of viewers what they they think of The Passion of the Christ:

'For some it will be an evangelistic experience, for others the film will simply be a violent story'
As 'The Passion of The Christ' opens in Britain, 'The Independent' asked a selection of film-goers if Mel Gibson's vivid account deserves its notoriety

One of the viewers, an eighteen your old student remarks, "The violence wasn't overdone; I'm part of the MTV generation, after all." One of the first times (the first time?) I have seen anyone saying that the violence was not overdone, which would I think be my own view. It is sometimes graphic but it is rarely gratuitous. Interestingly enough, another student interviewed feels the same way:

"One of the most redeeming features of the film is its attempt at authenticity. I realise it's obviously an interpretation and Mel Gibson's particular branch of Catholicism is quite obsessed with the physical sacrifices of Christ, but I didn't think the violence was gratuitous.

"It seemed to be more of a moral message, rather than trying to repulse. It seemed to try and convey, then as now, that violence was the lowest common language of man and that's what came across more than just the thrashing of Christ's body. The violence didn't seem to get in the way. More than anything else, the director conveys a moral message of humanity and perhaps that might convince people to look more closely at the Scriptures."

Could these radically different reactions to the violence in the film be related to the age of the viewer? I had a birthday this week, but am I still young enough to be reacting to this film in the same way that students are?

I am interested too with another of this person's comments, that "It was really enjoyable, but I kept thinking to myself I wish I had a better knowledge of the Scriptures as the narrative isn't strong." When I viewed the film for a second time this week, the lady selling me my nachos made the same remark. Asking me whether I knew anything about the Bible, she suggested I would enjoy it more if I did. She said that she did not know who all the characters were and what was going on, though she did say that she still found the film powerful.

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Today's Times has a very positive review of The Passion of the Christ. Given Mark Kermode's positive review in The Observer, it's beginning to look like British film critics are giving something of a thumbs-up:

The Passion of the Christ
Mel Gibson’s epic of faith and gore stuns James Christopher

MEL GIBSON’S reconstruction of the Passion is the most controversial horror film Hollywood has made since The Exorcist. It is not for faint hearts. The biblical “facts” are hitched to scenes of such intense, visceral realism that you physically flinch from the cruelty. It’s almost impossible not to be moved by Jim Caviezel’s vulnerability as Christ, even if the idea that he is no “mere” man is never in doubt. From the moment he is betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is treated like a lump of meat.

It’s a mesmerising, monolithic performance. Caviezel drips with sweat from the first chilly minute, and staggers through most of the film with one eye permanently closed after having his face pulped by Jewish soldiers within seconds of his arrest. What gives his humiliation such unexpected authenticity is the Aramaic (spoken by the Hebrews) and “street Latin” (adopted by the Romans), even if it sounds like pure Orc to untutored ears . . . . .

. . . . . Claims that the film is anti-Semitic are wildly inappropriate. The mob is far more enamoured of the scent of blood than arguments about blasphemy. The Roman soldiers are drunk on sadism. In their blundering, anarchic enthusiasm, they almost kill Christ several times before they can get him up Calvary.

Perhaps Gibson leans too heavily on old horror-movie staples. One might query the eerie presence of Satan as a cowled and sexually ambiguous monklike figure who ghosts through the crowd with a look of amusement. But it’s a spicy, and fitting, piece of imagination, just like the maggot that wriggles from his left nostril to his right. The rabble of taunting children who hound Judas to his tree have their faces transfigured into devilish goblins. And a teardrop from Heaven hits the ground like a bomb when Caviezel, as Christ, finally expires. But they are modest indulgences in the awesome context . . . . .

In my view, the overall tone of this review, like Kermode's, is about right. It is interesting to hear both Christopher and Kermode describing it as a horror film.

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BBC1's Breakfast News this morning had a feature on The Passion of the Christ presented by Tom Brook, the American film correspondent. And apparently the signs are that it's tough to get tickets for evening showings. (Tip for academics: use your next "research day" to get to an early bird showing -- they're cheaper too. Or take a group of students with you and then it's a "field trip".).

This article in The Independent reports on one strong reaction in France:

'Passion' is fascist propaganda: French film boss
By John Lichfield in Paris

Marin Karmitz, president of the MK2 group, said that he would not show the movie - a runaway box-office success in the United States - in any of his 10 cinemas.

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, the newspaper of the American movie industry, M. Karmitz said: "I have always fought against fascism, notably through [the films I show]. For me, Passion is a film of fascist propaganda."

As often with the film's most vociferous critics, it is the violence that Karmitz objects to:

He accused the Australian-born director of not only presenting a distorted and anti-Semitic view of the New Testament story but also "turning violence and barbarity into a spectacle".

"For two hours, you see a man being tortured, nothing else," said M. Karmitz.

Although he is Jewish, he criticised Jewish lobbies in the US for focusing on the alleged anti-Semitic elements in the movie and not its "culture of violence". "Behind this Passion ... you can glimpse a whole internationale of religious fundamentalism, a martyrology based on violence, contempt for the body and hatred for [humanity]," he said.

The idea that you only see Jesus being tortured for two hours and "nothing else" is pretty inaccurate. In my own view, the violence in this film is often graphic but it is never gratuitous. As with other similar critics, I find the notion that the film condones "hatred" an extraordinary one given the film's obvious stress on the themes of love of enemies, prayer for persecutors and forgiveness under the most appalling circumstances. Given the film's relentless pressing of those themes, I am surprised that it has not been criticized for trying to hammer the point home too strongly. How often does one see it mentioned in the reviews?

The article reveals an interesting link too with Jesus of Nazareth:

The film is due to be released in 600 cinemas across France on 31 March by Quinta Distribution, a company owned by the Franco-Tunisian film producer Tarak Ben Ammar.

M. Ben Ammar, who produced Franco Zeffirelli's equally controversial Jesus of Nazareth in 1977 and Roberto Rossellini's The Messiah in 1975, has said the film is not racist or anti-Semitic . . . .

. . . . . M. Ben Ammar said: "I thought it was my duty as a Muslim who believes in Jesus, and because I was brought up to respect all three monotheist religions, to show this movie to the people of France and let them judge for themselves."

Jesus of Nazareth "equally controversial"? That's a serious overstatement.

On the links between Jesus films, Paul Schrader, script writer for The Last Temptation of Christ, has recently commented on The Passion. He didn't like it. This from Tuesday's Guardian:

Last Temptation writer: Mel's Passion is medieval
Xan Brooks

"Last Temptation was a very humanistic film in that it sees Christ's struggle as a human struggle," Schrader told the Guardian. "Gibson's film is very different. My guess is that Mel has a problem with the Enlightenment because his film really does go back to the visceral blood cult origins of Christianity, and the fervour it's created is more akin to a Gospel tent meeting than it is to a motion picture."

On the question of whether the film is anti-semitic, Schrader points out that the problem may be largely to do with the Gospels themselves. "The Gospels were rigged for political reasons from the get-go. They were written 30-40 years after the fact to curry favour with the Romans and separate the Christians from the Jews. So the Pharisees were made to seem much worse than they were and Pilate was shown to be more agonised." . . . . .

. . . . . As it happened, Schrader was working in an adjacent studio in Rome when Gibson was shooting The Passion of the Christ, and would often drop by to visit.

"It was at the time he was taking a lot of flak, and I mentioned what had happened with us and Last Temptation. I told him that it comes with the territory: you make a film about this subject matter, people are going to take it very personally. But he didn't follow up on that because I'm sure he was one of those people who subscribed to the Vatican's view of Last Temptation."

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Thanks to Melisso Quero at the BBC for this update on the Bible Mysteries television series. The next episode is to air on BBC2 at 12.40 pm on Sunday 4 April (Palm Sunday); details here:

Bible Mysteries: The Disciples

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Jim Davila's Paleojudaica blog is a year old today (well, now yesterday). Many happy returns. I began reading Paleojudaica from the beginning and it was the direct catalyst for the creation of the NT Gateway blog several months later. Jim has put together an enjoyable retrospective with links to some of the most popular, interesting and recurrent postings. He also reflects on the blogging experience and has some interesting thoughts. This rule is particularly useful:

I've made a rule for myself that when I disagree with someone, I always try to imagine that I'm in the same room with the person, speaking to them face to face, when I compose the entry. That helps me keep to the point, stick to the facts, and avoid personal attacks.

That's something scholars in their criticisms of other scholars in printed work would do well to remember too. One of the things that I've found striking about blogging is that people actually read what you say and so you do become conscious of your audience. I've learnt that any remark I make here might well get read by one of the people whose work I am criticizing -- and that is a very helpful thing to have in your mind. My hope is that that consciousness will also improve the quality of one's published work.

Jim also suggests being wary of sarcasm, which does not work so well in the blogging realm. Agreed -- and also with humour generally one has to be careful. The only thing I'd add from my own experience is that one can get a little too self conscious if one is not careful and one of the keys to successful blogging is to be able to push postings out reasonably frequently in a relaxed enough way. I actually don't want to be spending a lot of time making sure that I've got this potential nuance or that possible reading exactly right. If I were to do that, I'd only ever be blogging and really would have no time for all the teaching and admin. I have to do, to say nothing of trying to eek out some time to research and write. So if people don't like what I write, they can send an email or post a comment. And it sometimes happens that I feel suitably chastened by something someone points out, e.g. I used an unfortunate turn of phrase a couple of weeks ago when commenting on The Passion of the Christ and I was pulled up on it.

Jim also mentions that he has learnt about the shoddy level of some journalism. Agreed. I very much like the way that Jim takes seriously the blogger's prerogative -- and especially the academic blogger's prerogative -- of calling journalists to account. Of course they make mistakes; we all do. The key question is whether they have the humility to correct them and learn from them.

Thanks, Jim, for some useful thoughts. And may Paleojudaica long continue to prosper.

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Spotted a preview tonight for a programme on Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ on Sunday, 9 pm, Channel 4, Mel Gibson - God's Lethal Weapon.

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News of another death while someone was viewing The Passion of the Christ. Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this link from BBC News:

Pastor dies at Passion screening
A Brazilian pastor has died during a screening of Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ.

Jose Geraldo Soares, a 43-year-old Presbyterian, had booked a whole cinema to view the film with his congregation.

Halfway through, his wife noticed that he was no longer awake, and a doctor in the audience confirmed that he had suffered a heart attack.

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This article from the Los Angeles Times is slightly off topic, as it were, but it may be of interest to some and has one or two great lines:

Whither goest Mel?
The success of "Passion" has made Gibson hotter than ever. Whether as actor or producer, he can pick from many roads.

"I give Gibson credit for using his resources to present his vision, which he has every right to express. But what dogs will be fed by Gibson's Last Supper? The movie is a two-hour primer on how to do a crucifixion, lacking layers and context, that caught the zeitgeist of the time. It was an egregious mistake for a person living in a multicultural society to present that effort to the world community."

A top major studio executive is equally upset by the "Passion" experience — although if his company signed a deal with Gibson, he "wouldn't fall on the sword," he conceded . . . .

. . . . . " 'The Passion' was made and marketed as Mel Gibson's," Guber said. "He was the true star of the film. His name gave the movie momentum. If Yuki Fiduki was the director, it would have lasted 10 minutes in the theaters. We don't know yet if we have a new market on our hands or merely an anomaly."

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Here's news to brighten up everyone's day. Monty Python's Life of Brian is to be re-released in the USA (and let's hope elsewhere too) to celebrate its twenty-five year anniversary. Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this link:

Python film to challenge Passion
Monty Python's film The Life of Brian is to return to US cinemas next month following the success of The Passion of the Christ.

The Biblical satire will be re-released in Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to mark its 25th anniversary.

Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson's blockbuster with the lines "Mel or Monty?", "The Passion or the Python?" . . . .

. . . . . Rainbow president Henry Jaglom said: "We decided this is an important time to re-release this film, to provide some counter-programming to The Passion."

He said the surviving members of the Monty Python comedy team "all agreed this was a good time" to bring back the film and would help promote it.

Mr Jaglom, whose partner John Goldstone produced the original film, said trailers for the comedy would start to appear in cinemas on Good Friday.

And the news also appears in today's Guardian:

Life of Brian comes back to bait Mel
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles

And this articles features some favourite lines from the film. The fact that the mere quotation of a handful of lines can raise a smile is a testimony to its greatness.

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The Guardian has a nice Jesus films quiz to celebrate the arrival in the UK of The Passion of the Christ:

Christ in the Movies
Christ in the movies
As The Passion of the Christ unshrouds itself in British cinemas, cast an eye back over the sometimes divine, sometimes profane Jesus movies of yore. Are you blessed or are you cursed? The answer is but ten commanding questions away

It's actually quite tough. I scored 7 out of 10 and ended up in limbo.

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Stephen Carlson informs me that his Hypotyposeis blog and Synoptic Problem web page will be down for a few days but due to return on April 1. We all look forward to their return!

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The Passion of the Christ begins two days of preview screenings in the UK today ahead of its national release on Friday:

The Passion of the Christ UK and Republic of Ireland

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Latest SBL Review of Biblical Literature reviews (I'm listing the NT ones):

van Aarde, Andries
Fatherless in Galilee: Jesus as a Child of God
Reviewed by Lincoln Blumell

Green, Gene L.
The Letter to the Thessalonians
Reviewed by Demetrius K. Williams

Patte, Daniel and Eugene TeSelle, eds.
Engaging Augustine on Romans: Self, Context, and Theology in Interpretation
Reviewed by David Parris

Schröter, Jens and Ralph Brucker, eds.
Der historische Jesus: Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung
Reviewed by Andries Gideon van Aarde

Vouga, François
Une théologie du Nouveau Testament
Reviewed by James E. West

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I'm sorry to see tonight that Beliefnet have removed a lot of the material from their excellent site about The Passion of the Christ and have pushed it into "premium" content which one has to pay for. This includes things I've often mentioned here, like the Crossan and Witherington Scholarly Smackdown and the very useful Scene by Scene guide. I am sure they have to make ends meet -- we can't all be spare time blogoholic enthusiasts, I suppose, providing everything for free. But it's still a shame when one has useful, freely available material on the net that then "goes premium". I remain intrigued by the Amazon experiment, according to which those texts that are freely available in their entirety are said to be the ones that also sell the most.

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Thanks to David Mackinder for the link to this well-written article on The Passion of the Christ from the Chronicle of Higher Education

'The Passion': They Know Not What They Watch
By TIMOTHY K. BEAL

I'd love to comment a little on this but my time is massively limited at the moment. But it's worth reading for some interesting comments on how the film parallels John's Gospel in setting up an insider / outsider contrast.

Update (24 March): thanks to Whit Stodghill (comments below) and Andrew Mills for pointing out that this has now gone premium too. Can't even find it in the Google cache.

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My university email address is now working again and the university web sites all appear to be back on-line.

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And here's one not to miss. Thanks to Mark Nanos for sending this over:

The Missing Logic that Threatens the Jewish Other: [PDF]
A Review of The Passion of the Christ
Mark D. Nanos

Comments in due course.

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In a comment to an earlier post, Darko points out that the Rotten Tomatoes site has over 200 reviews of The Passion of the Christ:

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

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An interesting and provocative piece today on The Passion of the Christ in Laksamana.net: The Politics and Economics Portal, with the now all-too-predictable title:

The Gospel According to Mel Gibson
Globalvision News Network - By Gabriel Ash

The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead because he was immensely popular and could ignite a rebellion; the Bible says so (although Gibson doesn't). Historians give the absent context. The Jewish leaders at the time were Roman puppets; (not unlike the Arab leaders of the modern Middle East) they maintained their position by collaborating with the Roman exploitation of their people. That is why Jesus' challenge was so attractive to the Jewish masses, and a real threat to the priestly leadership. Of course, that would have made Jesus as much a threat to Rome as he was to the High Priest; it is highly unlikely that Pilate would need a lot of prodding to execute a popular and charismatic rabble rouser. But the Gospel writers chose to de-emphasize Roman culpability. Writing after the destruction of the Temple, their audience was no longer Jewish. They did not want to call the wrath of Rome upon them, and they wanted their message to be appealing to Romans. They chose cooperation over confrontation with the empire, wise politics in retrospect.

With this background in mind, let's return to the story as it is. Pilate is given the best possible treatment in Gibson's film; the pro-imperial bias of the Gospel writers is enhanced and expanded with Gibson's own inventions. There is no criticism in the film of the colonial setting itself. On the contrary, Gibson goes out of his way to portray the nobility of spirit of Pilate and his wife. They are somber, almost ascetic. They don't share in the bloodlust of the "natives." Pilate criticizes the Jewish leaders for their lack of "due process" (not in the Bible). Gibson even invents an embarrassing philosophical discussion between Pilate and his wife about the nature of truth. They are not corrupt and hedonistic like the native puppet king Herod, represented in a scene that seems to be a homage to Fellini. On the contrary, their compassion is on display: Pilate offers Jesus water; his wife gives Mary some white linen to wipe Jesus' blood (both details are not in the Bible.)

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My Birmingham email address appears to be down along with all the Birmingham University web sites. If you need to get in touch, please use my blogines email address (but don't add this to your address book because it changes regularly).

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IMDb now has an absolutely massive list of reviews for The Passion of the Christ, at the moment 156 and counting. These are collected from sites external to IMDb, from newspapers etc.:

External Reviews for The Passion of the Christ

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Thanks to Helenann Hartley for this from CNN:

Spielberg: Won't comment on 'Passion'

First person he'll talk to will be Gibson

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- Declaring himself "too smart to answer a question like that," Steven Spielberg on Wednesday deftly sidestepped the controversy surrounding fellow filmmaker Mel Gibson's box office smash, "The Passion of the Christ," which has been accused of anti-Semitism.

And from BBC News, another report on the possibility that Gibson will film something on the Maccabees:

Gibson to film Jewish 'Western'
Mel Gibson looks set to provoke further antipathy among the Jewish community with plans to make a film about the story behind the festival of Hanukkah.

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Sunday this morning (BBC Radio 4) kicked off with a short discussion of The Passion of the Christ ahead of its UK release this week. Two Catholics are brought in to discuss it, Father Peter Malone and Peter Stanford, the first of whom loved it and the second of whom did not. Peter Malone makes the useful point about the value of the flashback scenes during the crucifixion. Listen here:

The Passion Debate

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On Paleojudaica, Jim Davila comments on the "Mel Gibson as holocaust denier meme" in the following article:

The Protocols of Mel Gibson
Katha Pollitt

Jim rightly remarks on the inaccuracy of charging Gibson with holocaust denial in the light of his Diane Sawyer interview (and I would add, the Peggy Noonan one too), but adds that otherwise "Pollit has a lot of criticisms of the movie that are correct", commenting that she has an "understanding of the movie that otherwise is supported with some good arguments". I am not inclined to agree here. The lack of careful attention to the source material exhibited in the accusation of holocaust denial seems to me to typify the article as a whole. In the main it is so marked with polemic, caricature and abuse that it is difficult to assess any of its potentially more insightful comments. The title alone should put one on one's guard, but one's confidence is not increased by the idea that using a woman to play Satan is "a nice touch of misogyny" (given that the most positive roles also played by women). While there is much talk of villains who "look Semitic", there is no mention of the fact that the main support (Mary) is played by a Jew, so that the article tacitly reinforces the very racial stereotyping that it is attempting to counter.

A further inaccuracy is the statement that the scourging of Jesus only occurs in three of the Gospels (it is in all four). And there is some nonsense about the scourging being a "ten-minute homoerotic sadistic extravaganza". Like the frequent but equally misleading charge that this material is pornographic, the notion that it is "homoerotic" I find simply baffling.

This is a very poor piece of journalism.

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