I have watched The Passion several times. The first time I saw it, I was quite young. I failed to understand it fully. By now, I’ve watched and analysed the movie enough times to say with some confidence that it is NOT an antisemitic movie. Is it a brutal movie, hard to watch, uncomfortable? Very much so. But it is also the story of a Jewish man in Roman Palestine.
The movie never hides or denies Jesus’ Jewishness. He and the other characters, his friends, rivals, allies and enemies alike speak both Hebrew as well as Aramaic and the Romans, of course, converse in Latin. Mel Gibson made sure to keep the movie as historically accurate as he could, while also respecting its Biblical source material. I feel like he did a good job in this, and that he was respectful in his depictions of all characters portrayed.
The reason why some people try to dismiss the movie as antisemitic, isn’t because of the movie itself… It’s because of the man in the director’s chair, Mel Gibson. He is a devout Catholic and a fine movie director. Solid actor, too. But he is the son of a prominent Holocaust denier by the name of Hutton Gibson, a man who only died this year at the age of 101.
Mel Gibson has a history of alcohol abuse. And once, when caught drinking and driving, he burst into a racist and antisemitic tirade. He said “The Jews start all the world’s wars!”, among other awful things. They say alcohol makes a man honest. But I’ve also seen men (and women!) say things they absolutely do not mean. Simply because, in that moment… they aren’t themselves.
Now Gibson, he grew up one of eleven children. His father was a horrific racist, a vile antisemite. Some of this toxic upbringing he had rubbed off on him. It never showed in any of his movies. I can say this with confidence. But he’s a survivor of abuse and a recovered alcoholic and this one tirade he went on does not in any way, shape or form reflect on “The Passion” as a movie. The movie is what the movie is. And Gibson, the man, is who he is.
And the Passion of the Christ, just like Mel Gibson himself, is NOT an antisemitic movie. It is a careful, respectful portrayal of the final moments of Jesus Christ. A Jewish man. A Palestinian. A speaker of Hebrew and Aramaic. And the movie in no way stripped him of his Jewishness.
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