Fair play to you, but you get my point.
Tsss… You really should work a bit on your skill to actually start reading what I write Grey. I know my personalized art of writing is difficult to follow, but that is not such a valid excuse anymore for someone familiar with them from day 1 of my presence here.
Now don’t overdo that… This cyberplace shall loose a bit of its attraction when things become dull.
Salaam. A
Well no, thats not what I was saying at all, but you knew that allready.
It seems to me that the interviewer, like many in this thread, consider the slaughter of jews in WW2 to be ‘worse than’ the slaughter of other groups of people in WW2. That some on this thread consider the persecution of jews throughout history to be ‘worse than’ the persecution of other groups throughout history. And I can understand that, if youre jewish. But objectively, jewish people are just another group among many who have been persecuted and killed throughout history. Objectively, there can be no ‘worst’ or ‘most’.
I have never heard a black person go on about the evils of ‘black’ slavery, only slavery itself. I have never gotten the impression from MLK, Malcolm or anyone else that it was Ok that there were Irish, Scot, Welsh, etc, etc slaves, or that the suffering the black slaves endured was somehow ‘worse than’ the suffering of the others. All I have ever heard from any of them was a denunciation of slavery itself, no matter who it was being enslaved.
All I interpreted Gibsons answer as saying was that ‘yes, the holocaust happened, but since Im not jewish I understandably dont consider it the worst horror among countless horrors that have occured in wars thoughout history.’ Because there can be no such thing as a worst. They are all ~equally~ as horrible.
And thats what I get from many of these posts; people seem insulted that they are not being accorded a special place amongst the downtrodden. Well, there are no special places amongst the downtrodden. It is all ~equally~ bad. Hell, Im waiting for one of you to come right out and say, ‘Oh, but those were just Gypsies’, or ‘Oh, those were just gays’, or ‘well they werent ~gassed~, MY ancestors were gassed’.
By trying to promote ones ancestors suffering as being ‘worse than’ other peoples suffering is to lesson or somehow denigrate the suffering that others have been through as well. There are no more or less acceptable ways of oppresion and persecution. Again, they are all ~equally~ bad.
Jeeez, that line ‘as if comparing starvation to being gassed in an oven’ is sick. I mean its ~real~ sick. As far as Im concerned anyone who thinks being forced to starve is somehow not comparable to or ‘not as bad as’ being gassed is a sick, sick bastard. Both are inflicted death. The manner of death is not what makes it disgusting, its the infliction of death itself. Its almost as if that person thinks some forms of inflicted death are Ok, while others are ‘worse’.
It seems the main issue on this thread that has gotten some people upset is that a few people on here dont consider what happened to the jews in WW2 to be ‘worse than’ what happened to many other groups of people in WW2. That there are a few people on here who dont consider the persecution of the jews throughout history to be ‘worse than’ the persecution of countless other groups throughout history. Its rediculous.
Again, do any of you who have a problem with the content of the movie think that the Ten Commandments contributed to any anti-Egyptian or by association anti-Muslim feelings amongst its viewers? Doesnt it sound silly just to ask the question?
Well, you are right - it is my expectations that are at fault; I was hoping for a rigourous attempt at re-creation of a piece of ancient mythology as if it were history, which (in my humble opinion) would have been very cool to see whether it portrayed the Jews of the time as monsters or not (and I am Jewish).
From this perspective, a-historical interpolations in the details sadly break the mood - like having Private Ryan pull out a GPS monitor to find his way home near the end of the movie.
Not to butt in, but technically I think thats exactly what theyve done - recreate of a piece of ancient mythology as if it were history. Mythology, by default, is not going to be historically accurate, though its in a historical setting.
Lets not even assume for sure yet that Pilate is portrayed as gay, it may be Pilate is portrayed as having a patrician accent or even effeminantly patrician habits to an extent. In modern times it may come off as gay though, to anyone not familiar with that stuff.
If they are going for recreation of mythology, its not unexpected that the historical Pilate would be ignored in favor of the decadent patrician class Pilate represents in the mythology. Far down the ladder of Roman aristocracy that Pilate actually was, he’s the only real figure at that time and place for the story tellers to use to illustrate and enunciate all of the more decadent aspects of the Roman elite that they of course are going to have to play up in order to satisfy the needs of the mythology. Especially considering that the real heyday of Roman aristocratic decadence was still a century or two away.
I would love to see a historically accurate picture of the time as well, but I doubt we’ll ever see that from a devout religous person.
Besides, I think the disappointment people feel in Gibsons history movies miss the point; he’s not going for accuracy, he’s going for the compelling story; the myth, the emotion, the impression it left on those that were there, not necessarily what really happened. Rather than an annal, he prefers the campfire. I just think he needs to be more clear about it, so people can adjust their expectations accordingly.
An excellent point; but in this sense I disagree - to my mind, the telling of mythology is enhanced if rigorous attention is paid to the details.
To my mind (and I may be wrong, as it is not my mythology), the essence of the Christ story is in his sacrefice and the consequent redemption of humanity.
Again, in my opinion, this story - the crucifiction and the redeeming - is the essence of the myth; the rest is more or less optional. Certainly, portraying Pilate as “effeminate” (using your theoretical example) is clearly not an essential part of the Christ myth. For an excellent counter-example, note the very effective portrayal of Pilate as a war-hardened, troubled (but far from effeminate) man in Bugalikov’s “Master and Margarita” - which I thought a much better example of mythology self-conciously portrayed as history than the movie is likely to be; because it seemed true to the time and place, it made the central drama more believable.
This being the case, using obvious stereotypes and other such irritating short-cuts to portray the myth does not enhance the mythological aspects of the story - they detract from them; rather than concentrating on the sacrefice and redemption, we get destracted by “Pilate the effeminate” (or whatever).
In other words, deviating from the historical probabilities does not add to the story as a story, but takes away from it - particularly when, as in the Pilate example, the distraction from historicity is likely not to be particularly insightful. It is much worse when moral ambiguities (which often make a story more compelling and powerful) are replaced by cardboard heroes and villians portayed in a stereotypical manner, which Gibson, to judge by his other movies, seems prone to do …
I can’t find the thread - is it me, or does the search engine seem to have a blind spot over part of the last few months? - but based on the comments of a Doper who saw an earlier version of the movie, that’s not what happens. He said Pilate appears with a comely young man who is obviously supposed to be his boy-toy.
I posted this link in another thread, but I’m still wondering if I’m the only hopeless sinner who finds one line in the text to be unintentionally hilarious.
And didja ever notice how short Mel Gibson is? We’re talking what, five-six tops?
His IMDb bio says he’s 5’10 1/2". Yeah. That would take a REAL miracle.
I appreciate your points; I think it just comes down to two non-christians trying to guess how the mass of christians (assumedly american ones) would like to see their mythology portrayed. 
And Marley, if thats the case (Im not doubting what you read), again I just think the purpose of that is more to have Pilate represent Rome, rather than Pilate, in the film. One could ofcourse make the point that, compared to the Greeks and others at the time, the Roman military in general were damn near as homophobic as modern americans (though admittedly in different ways). In the long run, the real bad guy of the crucifiction is not the jews, but the Romans, so of course they have to be portrayed in a way that modern christians would find loathsome or revolting. Just the way in which terrible traits would be added to the story to embellish if it were told around a campfire.
But who the hell knows; all these words and I havent even seen the movie.
Well, you’re way wrong on this point. The question was asked by right-wing, Catholic columnist Peggy Noonan. She regularly chats with higher-ups in the Vatican and She’s very pro Mel Gibson and his movie. She’d written a number of very favorable columns about the movie before this interview, including one where a spokesman for the Pope told her that the Pope thought the movie was just spiffy.
In the context of the interview, it was as softball of a question as could be asked. She couldn’t ignore the issue, but she tossed him as soft a question as she could spin it. An inquisitional/confrontational question would have been “Mel, your dad is a Holocaust-denying nutjob. You’ve said he’s never lied to you. Yes or no, do you share his opinions about the Holocaust not happening?”
Fenris
And as an aside, I think Mel’s answer sucked. The correct answer, given the specific nature of the controversy (that Mel has come out believing and supporting his dad the Holocaust denier and nutjob) was “Yes, I believe the Holocaust happened and millions of Jews died.” He could have even added “I love and respect my dad, but I don’t share his beliefs.”
As it was, it was about as weasel-worded as it could have been. Especially since the phrase “The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps.” sounds exactly like the sort of Holocaust denial that Mel’s nutjob dad engages in (there’re two main types of Holocaust deniers: “The Holocaust never happened at all, no Jews were put in Camps, etc” and the more modern “Sure the Jews were put into camps, but most were treated like POWs, the “showers” were de-licing facilities and while “some” Jews died of malnutrition or exposure or whatever, the vast majority didn’t die.” Mel’s dad is the second type), so it raises my suspicions even more.
Fenris
Not really - more me arguing how I would like to see someone elses’ mythology portrayed. After all, the only reason I am interested is that the historian in me got all excited, hearing that the movie was going to have Aramaic dialogue.
That seems like an overcomplicated explanation to me. Having not seen the thing, I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think Gibson’s intent is to ridicule Rome. The story is about Jesus, not the manner in which the Romans ran their affairs. You have to admit a much simpler reason would be that Pilate is evil, so Gibson figured he’d make him a fag too.
No, I’m pretty sure that’s Herod. Pilate is married in the film, and comes off pretty well, as someone who doesn’t want to crucify Jesus but is forced to by the Jews.
Crap, you’re right. I knew something was wrong when I wrote Pilate. It’s Herod, so it’s got nothing to do with Rome. Just villainy. My apologies. I’m usually pretty okay with keeping this stuff straight, even though I don’t exactly study it.