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March 02, 2004

The Passion of the Barbershop 2

Barbershop 2 is not anti-semitic. That was one thing I was pretty sure of before I went to see it. And, upon watching the film, I was right.

When this past weekend rolled around, I seriously contemplated going to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. I mean, after all, I had spent the last year listening to, watching, and reading the comments of imbeciles WHO HADN'T EVEN SEEN THE FILM OR EVEN READ A SCREENPLAY and who decided that it was their duty to tell the world that the film was not only anti-semitic, but that Mel Gibson didn't paticularly care for Jews, and that he shared his father's vague-though-questionable views on, among other things, the Holocaust. I've often noticed in my lifetime that when people go out of their way to bash something that they know nothing about, the very thing they're bashing usually winds up having some merit. So, after months and months of witnessing this Mel bashing, I decided that I'd have to see the film, if only to see what all the fuss was about.

But as The Passion made it to theatres, my desire to see the film has increasingly dissolved as I've listened to, watched, or read many people's reactions to the film. Entire church congregations are replacing Sunday morning services with trips to see the film, and many people of faith are hoping that this film - one man's interpretaton of the crucifixion of Christ - will lead people to the Lord.

Why does it take a movie - and a selectively scripturally-faithful one, at that - to excite people about God? Why do so many folks who already believe in Christ feel the need to watch a movie like this? If their belief is truly living and breathing, why do they mindlessly flock to the theatres? Is there something in the film that they don't know already? And how do they reconcile Gibson's artistic choices when those choices might fly in the face of what they believe?

Of course, along with the film came the usual Passion-related merchandise, which only made me want to see the film even less. A