The Promotion of the passion of Mel Gibson
Mary Dagmar Davies
27 February 2004

WARNING: Hardware Stores Should Report Anyone Purchasing Three Long Nails And A Hammer

I have not seen 'The Passion of The Christ' therefore I cannot speak of the film, but I do have the credentials to review the promotion of the film.

Years ago when I worked as a film publicist I was involved in the distribution promotion for Pasolini's 'The Gospel According to St Matthew' in the sixties and then Zefferelli's 'Jesus of Nazareth', in 1977. I held a number of screenings of the Zefferelli picture with both press and religious leaders and followers prior to the opening. The film ran over eight hours and concentrated on the Passion and Crucifixion. In the private screening room the viewers faces were illuminated by the screen; some looked sad, wept or looked away but a few appeared ravenous with excitement during violent scenes. I had seen this expression before when people viewed 'Mad Max' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.

After one screening, members of the print media selected stills for publication and asked if I was withholding images crucifixion; all production stills of the crucifixion had disappeared from the table. One person had taken them all - she worked on a radio show!

I have spent a large part of my working life in the entertainment industry and I am well aware the excuse 'It's only a movie'. I consider this to be the absolute cop out. Movies are very powerful. Remember that 'Birth of a Nation' resulted in the rebirth of the KKK.

Today the media is so powerful that it is possible to deliver the message of a movie even when no journalist, movie critic or discriminating punter has seen the picture. 'The Passion of the Christ' proves this and this is what worried me about the Gibson message:

1. I felt it was exploitative, populist and downright dangerous as it panders to fundamentalist Christian passions, fears and fury.

2. I also dislike the personal and confessional approach that Mel has used. His convenient claim of being either born-again or a devout Catholic, depending on his audience--he even used the Pope with an inaccurate spin suggesting papal endorsement--and his use of celebrity status to skilfully attract people of intense religious conviction and little theological or historical knowledge, is beneath contempt.

3. I dislike the manner in which he has exploited very real concerns about anti-Semitism, which have allowed fundamentalist churches to run letter-writing campaigns in his support, effectively casting him in the role of a Christ suffering under the Pilates and Jews of the mainstream film industry.

4. The clips that are being shown in the promotion are grotesquely and gratuitously violent so it can only be assumed the film itself goes much further.

5. The use of a woman, an androgynous woman, to depict Satan horrifies me as this can only cement subconscious misogyny and homophobia and increase the actual hatreds of the bible belt.

6. I am utterly unimpressed by the use of archaic language. It gives a false impression of scholarship, hides the nuances of the dialogue and obscures the actual screenplay. The Passion gives Gibson his first writing credit. It is ironic that the other screenwriter is Benedict Fitzgerald. His only other major credit is 'Wise Blood' (1979) an adaptation of a 1952 Flannery O'Connor novel which was an unsparing look at the eccentric world of low-rent evangelists and con men.

7. Many of the people Gibson's celebrity will attract from church groups are infrequent cinema goers unaccustomed to or incapable of reading subtitles. Therefore what many will see and recall is a series of tableaux of iconic religious imagery (simulation of Michelangelo's Pieta, other great religious works, and the familiar stations of the Cross) interspersed with state of the art cinematic reality in the depiction of violence and vilification which will either appall them or stimulate their urge for inappropriately timed vengeance.

8. I think the film can be very dangerous for the uninformed believer who is likely to believe and then live by the limited understanding of the gospel according to Gibson, thereby allowing the message of a commercial movie to replace that of the bible.

9. I believe the film is even more dangerous for those who enjoy violence but, having little imagination of their own, like to copy things they have seen in movies.

10. To counter criticism and claim sincerity he has ensured the world knows he 'had to use his own money' to get his passion to the world. Sure he spent his own money, 'seed money', and guess what? That means he gets all the profit! Tenfold? No much more than that.

It is my profound hope that Mel Gibson does not enjoy his role of folksy preacher to such an extent that he thinks it would be a good career move to form a church. Because if he does that he will not pay a cent in tax for this sacred cash crop.

Gibson is getting a bit old in leading man terms but now he's spent a lot of time with a lot of rich televangelists who all enjoy a very long shelf life, enormous wealth, power and stardom.

But my greatest fear is that those who believe we are facing Armageddon right now and are expecting a second coming at any moment may pre-emptively decide to cast actor Mel Gibson in the role of the Messiah. And that would be less than divine.

Will 'The Passion of The Christ' attract people who believe in Jesus or people who believe in violence? It will do both because that is how it has been crafted and sold. Maybe it should carry a warning: 'Do Not Try This At Home.'