Why don’t you try making it relevant instead?
And the humour is this would be… where, exactly?
Where is the humor in suggesting that all Japanese people are violence-obsessed, tentacle-rape watching perverts? Maybe you think that sort of thing is funny, but I don’t. You’re quite welcome to start your own thread to share your special sense of humor with the world.
This is the funniest thing I have read all week.
You are my new Comedy Superhero. 
In a vain effort to push the discussion away from a debate on 20th century history and each person’s capacity for violence and back to the topic at hand:
THAT is funny!
Magdelen: That’s it, then? That’s the secret, grand adventure of the infamous Jesus Christ. You spent three days lying in a tomb.
Jesus: Welcome to the Middle East, luv.
What a strangely suprising thread THIS one turned out to be. I was truly confused. Though in my current state…you can’t expect more.
THAT was hilarious!
But now…oddly, I feel like a bit of a pervy old lady…at 33…thinking that Orlando Bloom is QUITE cute!!! I don’t like men with a lot of hair. What can I say?! I went to see all of the LOTR movies with my BF to see Orlando Bloom (and Viggo Mortensen – who also doesn’t have a lot of hair! – YUMMY!)!!
Hmm…very strange.
As to the OP, I think you did the right thing in directing her to the pirate one.
<shrugs> He’s three months older than I am, and doesn’t look nearly as young as I do (more people think my almost 21-year-old brother and I are twins than come close to guessing my age… before speaking to me) so his looking young doesn’t bother me at all. PotC taught me that though he’s not as hot without the long blond elf hair, he’s still kind of cute anyway 
But what’s up with PotC 2 not coming out until 2006 according to IMDB? I know I heard last summer(in the TVGuide) that it was scheduled for 2005. 
Bullshit. I suggested no such thing. I merely indirectly pointed out that the fact that suggesting a Japanese woman would be “horrified” by Passion of the Christ was ridiculous, since Japanese media is far more violent (tentacle rapes included) than anything the Americans could tolerate.
Of course, this particular woman might be very delicate and something of a hothouse orchid, but that has nothing to do with her being Japanese.
That’s going in a profile or something, and never coming out. Amazing how some of the best compliments you ever get come from message boards. 
Well, he is only a few years younger than you, so I don’t think you should feel too pervy…unless your private thoughts about him are really weird or something!
I hope so. I’m afraid she might be looking for a steamier love story than Pirates of the Caribbean provides, but at least there is a love story involved, not to mention some hunky actors. Plus it’s in English, although I’m not sure how useful it will be for her to practice listening to pirate dialect!
Actually, I’ve previously hesitated to recommend PotC for just that reason. It’s a great, fun movie, but I think a lot of the dialogue will be difficult for anyone but advanced students to follow. And, as amusing as it is to imagine such a thing, I’m afraid some students might mistakenly imitate pirate-speak. This is not a completely far-fetched concern, either – one of my coworkers has already had a student ask when it would be appropriate to end a sentence with “savvy?” (Or is it “savez”?) But if my student gets the DVD she can turn on the English subtitles when she gets confused, and it’s part of my job to catch and correct any strange speaking habits she develops.
Oh, Bryan Ekers, I believe I already asked you to keep your irrelevant and uninformed ethnic stereotypes out of my thread. If you want to continue insulting the Japanese and their culture, please do it elsewhere.
Heh, tell that to my housewife students who were in their 40’s and 50’s, yet still were going wobbly over Leonardo DiCaprio when Titanic came out. I think most of the video stores in Japan still stock the final season of Growing Pains just for all the Leo fans out there, and he doesn’t even look like he’s 15 in those.
Sigh, and now I’m stuck here with visions of the tentacle version of The Passion going through my head.
Possibly, but you forgot to laugh (“Haw Haw Haw”) in her face when she mentioned Jesus.
The Japanese name for Jesus is Iesu Kirisuto, since Christianity has been in Japan a lot longer than English has.
Ah, that explains it. Makes sense that the Japanese name would be derived directly from the Latin, what with those old-time Catholic missionaries and all. I guess I was confused because on the (very rare) past occasions when a Japanese person wanted to discuss Christianity with me they always used the Anglicized form of the name. But those people have all been more fluent English-speakers than this particular student. Anyway, thanks for clearing that little mystery up for me!
Well, that’s the second time you’ve incorrectly accused me of insulting the Japanese. I think you owe them an apology (I’ll forego asking for one myself). As for being “uninformed”, I suggest you take a casual look at what is considered mainstream entertainment in Japan. You’ll find that a lot of it is far more violent than anything presented in Passion of the Christ. Whether or not your friend is a fan of it, I strongly expect she is at least aware of ultra-violent media, and her being Japanese is no indicator that she will be “horrified” by anything produced by Hollywood.
How you can twist this into an implied insult is unclear. I make no value judgements about the Japanese; I only state that their movies and television can reach extremes unheard of in the U.S. If anything, I’d expect if she took you to what she considered to be a particularly violent Japanese movie (possibly an animated film, as these are more common in Japan), you’re far more likely to be horrified than she would be at Passion.
As for “your” thread, your OP raised the subject of a Japanese woman horrified by a Hollywood film. My observations along these lines (including my sarcastic opening) don’t even constitute a hijacking of this thread, let alone an irrelevant insult.
To continue the Orlando Bloom discussion…
Last night in Yurakucho station on the way home from work, I saw two schoolgirls huddled by a poster for Troy. As I walked by, I saw that one was holding a camera while the other was trying to position herself just right against the poster so that it would look like Orlando Bloom was kissing her instead of Helen.
I live in Japan. I have a casual look at mainstream Japanese entertainment every day of the week.
*Why do you insist upon reducing my student to nothing more than her nationality? I barely mentioned it in the OP, and did so only so readers would understand why she wasn’t too up on Christianity or recent Hollywood movies. I also provided a nutshell description including her age, personality, and interests, but you’ve completely ignored all of that. The only thing that’s important to you is that she’s Japanese.
*Several months ago a number of my students warned me against attending a movie they’d recently seen. They’d been shocked by its senseless but graphic violence, and didn’t think anyone should watch it – not even people who like action movies. I wish I could remember the title…something about killing someone called “Bill”. Must have been one of those ultraviolent Japanese cartoons that’s far more extreme than anything shown in America.
*My OP raised the subject of a particular woman, who happens to be Japanese, being “disappointed and possibly horrified” (emphasis added) if she wasted her money on The Passion of the Christ when she was interested in seeing a romantic English-language movie with cute actors. The ideas that my only, or even a significant, objection to Passion was that it is violent (I recommended a violent film to her), or that my objections were based solely on my student’s nationality, have no basis in anything I have written anywhere in this thread.
Fair enough.
“Gentlemen, this will be the day you will always remember as the day you almost crucified Jesus Christ!”
I finally remembered which Chick tract this situation reminded me of: The Letter. It’s scary that I’ve read so many Chick tracts I have difficulty recalling which one I was thinking about. But I feel my role model as a teacher should be Ms. Henn. (Although I think I am slightly more attractive.) I’m sure my students would enjoy practicing English conversation with a couple of gay American dentists.