posted on February 25, 2004 06:42:39 PM newhave not even seen the movie.
On that...I can only speak from what I've seen or heard lately. But I think Hollywood is much more upset about this film, than are the Jews. I'm not speaking for the Jewish people, obviously, but why else would those who have not even seen the movie be so rabid about it being made? I think they're angry that they couldn't keep Gibson from going forward with his dream.
posted on February 25, 2004 07:05:38 PM new
Linda - the stereotype about hollywood being run by the Jews is not really a stereotype. The company I used to run was associated with the entertainment industry and I was the only non jewish person in a management or higher position. From marketing to VPs, lawyers and accountants as well as my equivalents at other companies we worked with in every medium of entertainment, every person I dealt with was Jewish. We used to joke that I was the token gentile.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 25, 2004 07:13:15 PM new
Yes, it was the Last Temptation of Christ, but, personally I don't remember this much protest, of course there wasn't the internet then, like there is now and I had kids at home, school and 'soccer mom' stuff in the 80's that I didn't pay a lot of attention to stuff like this (God, sometimes it IS nice to be old(er) )
I wonder if Gibson is going to be 'shut out' now in Hollywood, what with this movie?
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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."- Carl Sagan
posted on February 25, 2004 07:13:50 PM new
fenix - Yes I heard that for years. But I'm speaking of 'the liberal Hollywood' who don't take kindly to a Christian movie being made when so may are working to rid religion from the public eye.
Are you saying all these people we've heard speaking out about this film, in a negative way, while it was being produced even, are either Jewish or under the 'thumb' of the Jewish film makers [etc] who it's been said 'run Hollywood'? I think it's more an anti-religion stand, myself.
posted on February 25, 2004 07:23:47 PM new Every person who has seen the movie that I have seen today that saw the movie did not see the Jew Hating slant that is expoused by those who have not seen it.
A truly classic sentence fenix, do you mind if I use it in class tomorrow? ...I apologize....I just had to..you've got the verb see conjugated in all it's major tenses in one sentence!!
Anyhow, there was a fellow on Katie Couric's show tonight who had seen the movie and spoke at length at length about how the Jews are portrayed in a negative light. I haven't seen it, and most likely won't until DVD time, so I don't know. I've never bought the scriptural version of Jesus' life anyway....
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posted on February 25, 2004 08:21:00 PM new
Before hittin' the hay...just hope everyone knows I was just kidding [feeling playful]. Hope it was taken that way. nite
posted on February 25, 2004 08:50:21 PM new
Linda -
::Are you saying all these people we've heard speaking out about this film, in a negative way, while it was being produced even, are either Jewish or under the 'thumb' of the Jewish film makers [etc] who it's been said 'run Hollywood'?::
Linda- I have yet to see an anti Passion guest on any of these shows that is not Jewish. What Christians have you seen coming out against it? Just curious because I honestly have not seen one.
Prof - given that I am probably the reigning board master of typos, and specialize in the art of the run on sentence, does it surprise you that I would include poor structure in my resume as well? Please feel free to brutalize my skills at will for the benefit of your students.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 25, 2004 09:18:32 PM newa) It doesn't matter whether "he suffered more." He's Jesus, the focal point of a religion.
It does matter when it is used to tweak the emotions of people and to market a religion and a for profit movie.
b) because it's a good story, whether you are a believer or not.
I find it a depressing story at best, and a base use of violence at its worst.
c) Gibson thought others would be interested in the story--after all there have been a couple of hundred films already made about Jesus around the world.
No Gibson has said 'god told him to make the movie', money had nothing to do with it.
d) no film would ever be made if the the makers thought they'd not make a buck from it. Well, some documentaries, but not theatrical films...
That may well be true, but don't come and tell people that it was some act of contrition or faith making the film. Just say that it was made to make money.
I find all religion mythology. Religion by definition is mythology.
Mythology df: The collective myths and legends of a particular people, usually describing the exploits of gods and heroes and often including an account of how the world or life originated.
posted on February 25, 2004 09:20:13 PM new The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “True Lies” received criticism for its portrayal of Arabs. (20th Century Fox)
I have long been of the opinion that Hollywood defames the Arab in it’s representation of him, and not only since 9-11.
Smelly, misogynistic, terrorist bad guy.
The Arab has now become the focus of what some now call ‘Cowboy & Arab’ movies.
In the past, this has been only through personal observation, but now with Gibson’s movie I have googled around in an effort to see why, as popular media has represented it, some sectors of the Jewish Community are objecting to this film.
It seems that some sections of the Jewish community are either better at exercising what we all like to pride us as having in the West; and that is their political voice OR they have more of a voice.
Aljazeera makes an accusation of Israelis better at manipulating media.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/arbholl.htm
QUOTE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"When I got to Hollywood, at first I couldn't get a lot of jobs," Badreya said. "So I grew a beard and look like a really bad Arab, and I started to get a lot of work because that's what they want."
After years of virtual invisibility, Arab-Americans are finally finding prominence in Hollywood movies -- as terrorists and villains. They are only the latest in a long line of ethnic groups and nationalities cast in sterotypical bad-guy roles, from American Indians to Germans to Japanese to African Americans to Russians.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This writer goes on to say “the new cinematic enemy is the Muslim extremist.”
Well I don’t quite agree, I’d say he’s better perceived, yes as an extremist, but as a Muslim or Arab, full stop.
It wasn’t until I just read of the Jack Shaheen Professor Emeritus of broadcast journalism at Southern Illinois University
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/arbholl.htm that I learn’t of the ‘Kach Party’ and the ‘Jewish Defence League’.
Although they influenced followers in America and in Israel, and were responsible for multiple terrorist acts in USA and Israel, and were responsible for actual or attempted multiple assassinations, bombings, and aeroplane highjackings in America, I have never heard of them, and I guess neither had you.
Perhaps the Arabs should blame themselves for failing to exercise their political muscle and put a halt to these Hollywood stereotypes, and not have all Arabs portrayed as smelly, misogynistic, terrorist al-Qaida bad guys, just as I am yet to see Jews portrayed as members of the terrorist Kach party.
I love a good movie, but I think we should all be aware of over-used portrayals of any race, as I do believe that just like any good racist propaganda it can generally lead to the acceptance of racist stereotypes, and hatred.
Does anybody doubt that Hollywood’s bad guy stereotype at the moment is an Arab?
I have seen a recent Hollywood movie portraying the Antichrist as coming from the Vatican, and yet strangely enough even though Jews are said to dominate Hollywood, Italians don’t widely seem to bear the burden for killing Jesus. They were after all the rulers of the land at the time. Hundreds, if not thousands of years of propaganda are not that easily overcome.
I wonder how long it will take for Arabs to overcome Hollywood’s depiction of them, ‘if and when it’s over’.
I haven’t seen Gibson’s movie so I can’t pass judgment, on whether it has distorted current Biblical Representation, not that the bible hasn’t been distorted in it’s revisions/interpretations over the centuries.
St. Catherine's, a Greek Orthodox monastery nestled beside Mount Sinai outside Cairo, still functions today as a monastery and religious community.
Did you know that in 1844 German scholar Constantine Tischendorf had the earliest known copy of the New testament, Codex Sinaiticusca.C4th, handed to him by the monks for translation, under orders of Russian czar, Alexander II.
It was never returned, and In 1933, Russia sold the Codex Sinaiticus to the British government, which now houses it in the British National Museum.
I once saw on a documentary that it apparently contains chapters not in our current interpretation, including some by; Mary Magdalene & Judas Iscariot.
It seems that some Orthodox Christian didn’t like what they had to say.
Perhaps we should all tear up our Bibles and start again from scratch.
posted on February 25, 2004 09:34:22 PM newMythology???
Myth or not, tough to prove.
But there is little doubt that it is, as the revered Jewish German philosopher and economist Karl Marx put it, ‘The opium of the masses’
posted on February 25, 2004 09:35:12 PM new
Aust - you have to give Hollywood a little credit - they turned an excellent Tom Clancy book (Sum of All Fears) into an absolute dog of a movie with a ridiculous set of villans because of an effort not to demonize Arabs.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 25, 2004 11:28:06 PM new
I don’t know the book and can’t recall seeing the movie.
Assuming you are correct as to why it was a dog of a movie, is it because the Arabs were portrayed as philanthropists , or just not nasty ‘enough’?
Oh well, not even Hollywood is perfect, thankfully we have plenty of 'good' movies with ‘believable’ Arab types.
posted on February 26, 2004 06:40:50 AM new
Aust - although the book is part of Clancy's Jack Ryan series which was preceeded by Alec Baldwin as Ryan in Hunt For Red October and Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger they strayed FAR from the continuing story line of the book basically seperating this movie from the series and casting Ben Afflek as Jack Ryan. In the book a group of radical muslim terrorists reconstituted the bomb material from a long downed Isreali fighter, smuggled the new bomb into the US and detonated it at the SuperBowl in Denver (plot oops - Superbowl is not held in open stadiums in areas where snow is possible). A combination of lack of communication abilities, expanded flash and heat radius due to asphault heat absorbtion and light reflection from snow on satelites readings result in the bomb initially being judged as much larger than it really was The over-reactionary president egged on by an incompetant paranoid National Security Director decide that only the Russians have this weapons ability and nearly lead us into WWIII.
In the movie, although the materials still originate from the Isreali plane, it is Nazis not Arabs that reconstitute the bomb and set it off in Baltimore. There is zero charachter development and ughh - I just cannot explain how bad it truly is.
If you get a chance you should read some of Clancy's books. Some of the best are...
EXECUTIVE ORDERS - you might have heard of this one following 9/11 since it forecast 5 years in advance the use of a commercial airliner as a weapon of attack against the US.
RAINBOW SIX - An off shoot of the Jack Ryan series surrounding an international paramilitary anti terrorism strike force dealing with biological warfare. You might find this one especially interesting since the event intended as the launching point of the "weapon" was the Olympic games in Sydney.
RED STORM RISING - one of his first books. I only recommend this if you have a great deal of patience for extreme military detail. It hypothosises how a group of third world extremeists would manipulate a war between the US and Russia and how it would be fought on land sea and air.
BEAR AND THE DRAGON - China, seeking to expand their borders and relieve financial woes decides to capitalize on the weakness of the former Soviet Union and their defenses and invade. Most interesting not because of the battle aspects but the social and economic evaluations of the state of communist China.
Clancy is known for painstaking research and extreme (and occasional mind numbing) attention to detail (except for a Superbowl in Denver that is ) He was investigated by the CIA following Hunt For Red October as his working knowledge of a submarine was considered much too indepth and accurate for someone with no security clearance. While his storylines are of course extreme, they are scary in their plausibility.
I'm actually surprised that you have not read any of his stuff. I think that you especially would enjoy them.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 26, 2004 07:18:47 AM new
An opinion I share:
August 29, 2003
GIBSON AND HIS ENEMIES
by Tom Piatak
For years, conservatives have wondered if there was any movie Hollywood would balk at showing. Blasphemy, incessant profanity, graphic sex, obscene violence—none of these has proved an obstacle to Hollywood, and films containing some or all off these elements have enjoyed widespread critical applause.
But we have finally found out what sort of movie will make Hollywood blanch. It must be made by an Oscar-winning director and acclaimed actor. It must be made on a set where Mass was offered daily, and where the leading actor received Holy Communion every day. And it must be based on the most important books in history, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The movie, of course, is Mel Gibson's The Passion, a film that has yet to find a distributor and has been the object of an unprecedented campaign of vilification, beginning before any of its critics had even seen it and months before its scheduled release.
The open campaign to censor Gibson's script has elicited not a word of protest from the advocates of artistic freedom who thought taxpayers should have to subsidize "art" consisting of a crucifix submerged in urine, and some are predicting the film will mark the end of Gibson's career.
As entertainment publicist Michael Levine noted, "in liberal Hollywood, it's easier to declare yourself a gay drug-addicted kleptomaniac than a born-again Christian."
However, the real enemies of Mel Gibson's Passion are not Hollywood liberals. They are an assortment of subversive academics, ecclesial apparatchiks, and heavy-handed enforcers of political correctness, whose opinion of traditional Christianity is so negative that they hope to silence Gibson because he professes it.
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posted on February 26, 2004 10:37:01 AM new
I think a lot of jewish people have a fear that christians still blame them for the death of Christ whom they dont believe is, or was God to start with except maybe the Jews for Jesus group. A lot of backazzwards' christians want to blame Jews for all thats wrong in this country, right now too.
A few months ago here, there were a few synogogues desecrated by teenagers. I was stunned to learn where they get their ideas from. What do kids know except what they're told and taught? Way too much hate going around...
If conservatives want to fix anything, they should work on that first.
posted on February 26, 2004 10:45:55 AM newIf conservatives want to fix anything....
lol What? Before the liberals ALLOW a film like this to be made? If so, I couldn't disagree more.
Most of the Christians I know have absolutely no issue with those of the Jewish faith. They are able to understand not all see things the same way. We each choose our own way.
And yes, because the Jewish faith doesn't recognize the NT it's easy for anyone to see why they don't buy Mel Gibson's 'take' on this. But that doesn't mean he didn't have a right to make a film that shows his 'take' on the last 12 hours of Christ's life.
posted on February 26, 2004 11:12:45 AM new
Actually, Christians such as George Bush support Israel. That is one reason we are in Iraq...to protect Israel and to eventually expand Israel across the mid-east.
posted on February 26, 2004 11:16:49 AM new
Maybe you'd like to point out a time in our recent history when the US didn't support Israel....under any administration.
posted on February 26, 2004 11:32:46 AM new"Maybe you'd like to point out a time in our recent history when the US didn't support Israel....under any administration."
Where did you read that I said that they did not? My point is that Bush is making extraordinary efforts to "support" Israel at this time.
Here we go again...you aren't reading.
Helen
My response was to neroter, BTW. I should have made that clear by using her name but after reading my memo to you previously, I thought that you would understand. Maybe I should make it my signature line.
posted on February 26, 2004 11:39:58 AM new
Linda - I have to admit I am confused. Yesterday you said that it was liberal Hollwood hat did not want the movie made but today you post a story that you state you agree with that that states, "However, the real enemies of Mel Gibson's Passion are not Hollywood liberals.".
Have you changed your opinion?
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 26, 2004 11:50:29 AM new
helen - [i]My response was to neroter, BTW. I should have made that clear by using her name but after reading my memo to you previously, I thought that you would understand. Maybe I should make it my signature line.
[/i].
Never stopped you before. Matter of fact you've said many, many times you'll post what you want when you want.
Making different rules for me?
posted on February 26, 2004 11:56:38 AM new
fenix - No I haven't.
My position is that most of Hollywood has left wing liberals, as actors, directors, etc.
I think we saw that very clearly before we went to war.
Because I post an article with views I share, but who's views were articulated much better than I could have written them, doesn't mean I agree with each and every word.
posted on February 26, 2004 11:57:51 AM new
Apparently, linda you missed my posts to you on this thread
I'll copy past them here for you....
First, I said this....Run along linda. You clearly don't know what you are talking about. Maybe you can find someone else to rail against.
It appears that there is an exceeding number of such posters who want to chat with you. Have fun.
Helen
Then after a note from twelvepole, I posted this to you.
And, linda....
If you have noticed, there are posters here that I ignore. I read their comments but simply don't respond because I have determined that those posters are either unable to communicate on a level higher than that of a juvenile playground insult or in cases like yours lack sufficient knowledge about a subject.
I have other problems with you including your refusal to document your questionable information and your unsubstantiated allegations. So, I have no interest in engaging in any kind of dialogue with you on a conventional basis. I will continue to point out errors and wrong allegations but I have no interest in you other than that. I have butted heads with you many times and after winning the battles, you simply ignore your lost arguments by returning to your first statements which were proved wrong.
I come here like most people to read and share opinions with other people and have a good laugh every now and then. Arguing with you requires so much maintenance that it is not worthwhile. By maintenance I mean review of history for you, researching your information for you, and dealing with your narrow minded conservative opinions.
posted on February 26, 2004 12:10:44 PM new
fenix - Meant to add this quote:
"As entertainment publicist Michael Levine noted, "in liberal Hollywood, it's easier to declare yourself a gay drug-addicted kleptomaniac than a born-again Christian."
But figured you'd just use it to point out his surname is Jewish.
Re-elect President Bush!!
This topic is 10 pages long: 1new2new3new4new5new6new7new8new9new10new
and I had kids at home, school and 'soccer mom' stuff in the 80's that I didn't pay a lot of attention to stuff like this 
