I didn’t notice anything particularly homoerotic about the movie, and believe me, I’m always on the lookout for some good boy-on-boy action, however subtle (hellooo Smallville). Of course, I did fast forward through a lot of it. What a bore.
I’ve always found pics like this pretty hot.
Or a religious person participating in a reasoned debate of anything.
And this wasn’t shown in Passion of the Christ?
I didn’t notice anything particularly homoerotic about the movie, and believe me, I’m always on the lookout for some good boy-on-boy action, however subtle (hellooo Smallville). Of course, I did fast forward through a lot of it. What a bore.
I’ve always found pics like this pretty hot.
To assume that a religious person is incapable of a reasoned debate is to admit your own inability to see past personal prejudice and narrow-mindedness.
That one is religious does not make one incapable of reasoned debate.
Diogenes is claiming the film failed for him because it breaks down fundamentally, just like the religion it is based on – well, there’s a surprize.
POTC is no more a movie for non-believers than “No Exit” is a play for Christians. To complain that it does what it set out to do, within the context it set up, is akin to disliking chocolate because it tastes like chocolate.
As I said, if the movie doesn’t speak to you pholosophically, then, by all means, say so, but don’t condemn it for that. It wasn’t meant to address non-believers, and without a Christian context in which to view it, it comes off as a mere depiction of violence for the sake of wallowing in it. I don’t think that was its intention, from a Christian perspective, the violence has a meaning apart from violence.
To say God must suffer in man’s place, because God has condemned man is to miss some very fundamental Christian concepts and greatly simplify something that is more complex than that.
This isn’t the place for a philosophical discussion though – if you want to call me an unreasoning idiot because I hold religious beliefs (which is the essence of your post), call me out in the pit – but leave it off the Cafe Society board.
Just count the scenes in Mel Gibson movies where he gets bound and tortured by another guy: Lethal Weapon, Braveheart, Payback, Conspiracy Theory, and probably some I’ve missed. The guy’s got some weird fixation with guys being tied up and tortured, and it’s pretty easy to see his depiction of Christ as an extension of that. And the spear in the side, well, that’s pretty much a giveaway.
TWEEET!!! ::: Moderator blows whistle for attention :::
OK, back to topic. The discussion topic here is about the movie and why some people call it “homoerotic.” A broader discussion of the movie is possible, that’s reasonably tangent.
However, a discussion of religion, of Jesus’ teachings, of basic Christian principles, regardless of whether pro- or anti-, is out of place here. Religious discussuion belongs in the Great Debates forum.
To the extent that the movie is about basic Christian principles, that’s OK to comment on here. And you can try to connect the two. But whether you believe or disbelieve, whether you think those principles are illogical or are true salvation, that’s NOT a topic for this forum. Whether the movie is consistent or inconsistent with those principles, and what message you think Gibson was trying to confey, that’s OK. There’s probably a fine line, and possibly a fuzzy one, but it’s there. Connect to the movie, that’s OK. Disconnect from the movie, and you’re hijacking.
And commentary on other posters, on what you think about their beliefs or logic, are out of place. This includes making deductions about other posters’ motives: questioning why an atheist would find this thread interesting or whether a religious person can think logically, is out of bounds. ddgryphon and DanBlather, this means you. Well, actually, it means everyone else too.
Please see Rules for posting on the Straight Dope Message Boards and note especially Post #10. Or, equivalently, see Forum Rules and note Post #3.
Actually, it goes to eleven.
As for the OP, Christopher Hitchens chose to decribe POTC as “homoerotic” because he knew that would be especially offensive to Gibson & conservative
C’tians. Hitchens can be brilliant, witty, insightful but when it comes to anything
religious, he’s a troll.
Another thread had a link to a YouTube movie about Top Gun where the scene of the guys playing volleyball was labelled homoerotic. So I would guess that perhaps for the reviewer, any scene where more there are two or more guys shirtless and a bit sweaty and there are few women around would be considered homoerotic, regardless of what those men are actually doing.
But then I’m a straight female, so what do I know?
Of course POTC is homoerotic. Why else do you think there’s a pirate in the Village People?
Check out Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant monologue on the gayness of Top Gun (from the movie, Sleep With Me).
Kittenblue
As many threads have shown us, straight women are just fine at recognizing homoerotica. Slash and yaoi are directed almost entirely at straight women.
Mea Culpa.
And many apologies – didn’t intend to step over the lines, but in retrospect I see it clearly.
My apologies to all involved.
What, Judas kissing Jesus? Not feelin’ it. No tongue action.
Dio, I am an atheist, but I understand the power of the Christian sacrifice/resurrection myth. It’s true that it might require a leap into metaphor, beyond logic, but your suggestion seems to be that since you can’t, personally, understand it through abstract logic, then therefore there is nothing to be understood. This is not the case.
(It helped me to understand it when I learned that it evolved from the Jewish tradition of the Yom Kippur scapegoat.)
Read Barabbas, by Nobel-Prize-winner Pär Lagerkvist. It’s the story of the one person for whom Jesus’s sacrifice was *literally *true–the only person in whose place Jesus literally died–and the journey Barabbas takes, afterwards, of coming to grips with the larger, metaphorical power of that fact. In other words, it’s a book exactly about the question you pose.
Plus it’s short.
St. Sebastian was martyred (according to tradition) by being tied to a stake and shot full of arrows. I believe Yukio Mishima, the Japanese writer, got off for the first time while looking at a picture of the event. (His other hang-ups were armpit hair, and white cotton gloves.)
As for the OP, I suspect stuff like this is erotic for people who are, to whatever extent, sado-masochistic. Such an orientation is not unheard of, but not exactly universal either. So the film acts sort of like a Rorschach test.
IOW, are white gloves and armpit hair homoerotic? For Mishima, they were. Is TPotC homoerotic? If you get off on the idea of flogging, I’m sure it is for you.
The other part of the characterization is this:
It is, as FT mentions, done out of a desire to give offense.
I doubt it is possible to explain to someone who doesn’t ‘get’ it why flogging is erotic. Either you find it so, or you don’t.
Regards,
Shodan
Now I think about it, “The Spear of Longinus” sounds more and more like a Roman porn title: watch Jesus take ten steel-hard inches of Longinus’ man-spear! He’s bound to come again!
Sigh. It’s always about the tongue for you, isn’t it?
It’s not just the kiss, surely. You’re talking about the story of a charismatic, limber woodworker and his extremely close circle of male admirers. He’s not only kissed, but also tied up, flagellated, dressed up like a prince, forcibly stripped, and penetrated with various foreign objects. Most of the above is done to him by rugged, burly men wearing leather pants. He repeatedly falls to his knees in front of these men. That’s not even taking into account the incident where he invites all his buddies to dinner, and then commands them to eat him. It’s frankly astonishing that the movie’s score doesn’t consist entirely of '70s electric porn guitar.
That’s what you get for having a smothering mother and an absent, ineffectual father…
