Gibson's Film Not As Gulay Portrays

To the editors:

Erol N. Gulay’s February 23rd opinion article, “The Misunderstanding of the Christ” demonstrates an unfamiliarity with its subject, Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ.” It would not surprise me to hear that he had not seen the film when he wrote his column criticizing it.

Gulay accuses Gibson of antisemitism: “Gibson never wants people to forget that we are ultimately responsible for his Lord crucifixion. And by people I mean the Jews.” I’d like to hear Gulay’s justification for this, since his article provides none. I saw the film last night, and if Gibson had an antisemitic agenda, he failed miserably. Simon the Cyrenian emerges as a major hero in the second half of the film. As in the gospels, one of the thieves (yes, a Jew) is seen as a sympathetic figure for his genuine remorse. Just as many Jews were depicted in the film as wishing for Jesus’s death, many were sympathetic to him, simply from the standpoint of watching a man endure a horrible ordeal. Through most of the film, the characters beating him were not Jewish, but Roman. Suggesting that the film makes any commentary on “the Jews” as a group is absurd.

To say that the film “focuses on the brutality and bloodshed visited upon Jesus, cleverly usurping the message of love and brotherhood, only to replace it with the message of intolerance, sin and violence” misses the point entirely. The critical moment in Christianity, Christians believe, was precisely when Jesus endured the hell depicted in the film. Christ went through it, according to Christian belief, so that the people that he loved (read: “everybody”) could be saved. Gibson attempted to depict the extent of that sacrifice. How successful Gibson was in doing this is potentially debatable. What is not debatable is that he was not pointing fingers or guilt-tripping anybody.

In the future, it would behoove Crimson writers writing about a film that depicts events in the Gospels to have a working knowledge of Christianity of some kind. At the very least, it would be helpful if they were to have seen the film before writing about it.

Michael L. Stewart ’05

Feb. 28, 2004