The Passion of the Christ, by Mel Gibson has taken America by storm. In the US alone, it made $83,848,082 its first weekend. As of April 25, 2004 it has grossed worldwide over $364 billion. Not bad for a movie with a budget of $30 million.
The movie is subject to a lot of criticism. People are worried about many things. Are the images depicted correct? Is it too gory? What will people’s reaction be? Will any demographic of people get hurt from the movie? A Catholic teacher from California was fired for offering students extra credit to see the Passion. (It is a rated “R” movie) There are many other problems too. Does The Passion bring about acts of anti-semitism? This will be the purpose of this paper.
To answer this question, I conducted a simple experiment with different variable. The first variable is age. The second is location. I interviewed sixteen people, (eight women and eight men) and asked them the same questions. Four males and females are from the Binghamton area, and four males and females are from the Long Island area.
I grouped the ages from 18-25, 25-35, 35-55, and 55 and on. I asked each person their faith/religion. I originally asked more than 16 people, but people who refused to answer the question or people of no faith were thrown out. I conducted the experiments at Loews Town Square 9, located at 2425 Vestal Parkway, Binghamton, and Loews Roosevelt Raceway, located at 1025 Corporate Drive in Westbury, Long Island.
I asked each person six question. The results follow:
Sex:
Male
Age Group:
18-25
Location:
Binghamton
Religion/Faith:
Christian
Extra Pertinent Information:
Very religious. Attends services regularly.
Thoughts before movie:
Excited to see a religious movie.
Would you consider yourself an aggressive or easily agitated person?
“Not really. Pretty laid back.”
Do you consider yourself a religious person?
Yes. Definitely.
Do you think the movie will make people angry at th...
... middle of paper ...
...s of the experiment are clear. One hundred percent of people showed aggression towards the Jews, after all but two claimed to not have an aggressive personality. Just look at message boards posted throughout the internet, or just talk to people. The aggression is there. And unfortunately, Mel Gibson’s movie is causing hostile acts.
I did not see the movie until the experiment was complete, in order to keep this experiment unbiased. I think that the anti-semitism in the movie was extraordinarily clear. I actually think it is totally contrary to the Catholic doctrine. Another thing is the history of the Gibson family. Mel’s father, Hutton, is an open anti-semite, holocaust denier, and accuses the current pope of being Jewish. When a person grows up in a household learning that, it stays with the person. I can prove this with another experiment. Kids who grow up getting physically abused, are usually abusive parents themselves.
In conclusion, the movie does cause anti-semitism and anti-semitic acts. The evidence is clear from the experiment. Hopefully, the world can get through this without any incidents.
Sartre wrote "Anti-Semite and Jew" in France in 1948, before the establishment of Israel. This book is interesting because he spoke with a nationalistic point of view, which means that some of his conclusions don't really apply to America yet still makes meaningful points that we can understand. Also, because he wrote in 1948, the issues of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism disguised as attacks on Israel had not become in vogue yet. In that sense, his work is somewhat dated but many of his findings carry through into today which is quite important in a scholarly book.
...ons also served to help bring a new light to old scriptures. Taking the values and lessons of Biblical accounts and placing them into the context of a film work to reinforce the good values and wisdom passed down from generations ago. In no way did this film carry an anti-religious sentiment or offensive remarks. If you take the entire context of the film, it was in fact an encouragement to pursue religious and spiritual endeavors.
In addition to the harsh feelings shown toward the Jews by the non-Jewish community, this film shows the cold relationship between the different groups of Jews.
So, does anger can be the origin of hate? For sure it can be. After watching few minutes of this film I wanted to bit the crap out of that Billy Roper Nazi bastard. I hated him from the bottom of my guts after few minutes of listening to his psycho-babble. His statements triggered anger in me, and I wanted to hurt him really bad. I hated him not because I am minority or gay, I am none of that, but because my country (Russia) heavily suffered from Nazism during World War II. During whole my life I was taught by teachers, parents, mass media and trough my culture that Nazism is bad and cannot be tolerated. It also can serve as example showing that hate can be passed and taught from generation to generation, and can be based on historical events that cannot be forgotten.
...ll, the accuracy and fairness of the arguments presented within suffer from the financial interest of those professionals within the movie. The argument stilts itself on the ethos attributed to the perceived authority figures, attributing correlation as causation, in order to drive home a marketable lifestyle that focuses more on pathos-laden reasoning than on a logical foundation. Based on the potential demographic, it could very well be effective to achieving the goal of those involved with the film.
Stereotyping throughout the film has created chaos. People are endangered and mislead. Stereotyping leads to sexual abuses, racial judgments, and power conflicts. It is all negative influences on individuals in which they are categorized and grouped together to be more easily discriminated. People are people. We are all the same, and come from similar experiences. We need to realize that we are all human and it should not be part of our life to misjudge on first sight. We need to improve, be more aware of others, and always keep an open mind. Avoiding stereotype improves our society and cultures from every person to every group. In the end, we are the same and we are all connected.
In Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew, he makes reference to the notion that anti-Semitism arises not against individual Jews, but against the " idea of the Jew." That is to say that the Jew is recognized only as a member of a group associated with fear and disgust, not as an individual capable of being anything but the stereotype of the Jew. I agree with Sartre's theory as I have seen first hand the disgust associated with being Jewish. The Jew is judged not by his action or words but simply by the fact that he is a Jew, and the preconceived idea of what this means. As discussed in class, Jews have been used as scapegoats throughout history.
Ultimately, it is my opinion that this film is a perfect example of what is wrong with society. Society and the social “norm” dictate what is acceptable. Society (or a select few in power) has determined that racism is an acceptable practice. Society is oblivious to the fact that this acceptable “norm” is something that can and should be changed. Until the day that the “races” can come together and demand equal treatment of all, regardless of race, racism will persists.
... end more successful in one factor that religious anti-Semitism was never able to accomplish as well. That is to be able to get the full support of the masses through mass propaganda, which appealed to people’s discontent, something the religious movement never came close to.
Anti-Semitism is dated as far back as 310, when Roman Emperor Constantine I (272-337) converted to Christianity. By the sixth century, most of the Roman Empire had fully converted to Christianity and abided by the New Testament in which Jews were called hypocrites and were blamed for the cruxification of Jesus. At this point in time, is the beginning of when Jews were perceived as different because there were differences between the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity, even though Christianity derived from Judaism. By the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press enabled the of spread anti-Semitism throughout Europe because of the mass production of anti-Semitic books like Hartmann Schedel’s Weltchronik (1493) and Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies (1543); however, even with the release of these books, anti-Semitism still had not elevated to a point of radicalism. Anti-Semitism was clearly present in print; nonetheless, it did not reach its copiously radical capacity until its incorporation into film.
This movie does provoke a dialogue on race that, according to author and journalist Jeff Chang, "has been anathema to Hollywood after 9/11." During the first viewing of
Thus, anti-semitism is a way to link the Oceanian people together, especially during the Two-Minutes Hate, where Emmanuel Goldstein, a Jewish man, is ridiculed and harassed through the telescreens: “The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’ and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably” (pg. 14). As well as being a derogatory term used against Jewish people for years, the use of the word “swine” barbarizes Goldstein, and by extension Jewish people, further by comparing him to an uncivilized animal (ironic, considering how in Orwell’s novella Animal Farm, pigs are the most civilized creatures on Animal Farm). In fact, Goldstein is often referred to in animalistic terms, like on page 12: “It was a lean Jewish face...a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable...It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality.” The connection to sheep invokes the feeling of docility and a tendency to “go with the crowd”. In sum: Goldstein’s arguments are invalidated, tired, and ultimately, hogwash. The Party uses this anti-semitic nullification of Goldstein’s arguments and dehumanization of the Jewish people to unite the masses, and allows them to feed into the
This experiment is a test to see if people are naturally aggressive. Milgram does not believe that people are naturally aggressive. Although some people think people are naturally aggressive. Ordinary people can be part of a bad course of actions without having any anger toward then victim.
The holocaust was the mass murder of about six million Jews during World War II. The hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group is known as antisemitism. Antisemitism was a centuries old phenomenon. Jews in Europe had always been a minority. In some countries , Jews could not own land, attend school, or practice certain professions. The Holocaust, which was between 1933 and 1945, is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism. A German journalist that was named Wilhelm Marr originated the term antisemitism in 1879. Which symbolized the hatred of Jews, and also hatred of a variety of advanced, catholic, and international political trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that were often joined with Jews. The tendency under attack included equal civil rights, required equality, free trade, ownership, account free enterprise, and self control from violence. Between the most casual definition of antisemitism all through history were pogroms. Pogroms were violent riots that were begun against Jews and many times supported by government authorities. Pogroms were often encouraged by blood libels, which were false rumors that Jews used the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes. In the modern era, antisemites added a political quality to their ideas of hatred. In the last third of the nineteenth century, antisemitic political groups were formed in France, Germany and Austria. Advertisements such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion developed or provided support for fake theories of a global Jewish plot. A convincing part of political antisemitism was nationalism, whose supporters often falsely accused Jews as disloyal citizens. The Nazi party, which was established in 19...
The Passion of the Christ is one of many films about the life of Jesus but this particular one is different to the others. Released in 2004, directed by Mel Gibson and filmed in the ancient Aramaic language, `The Passion' focuses mainly on the death of Christ and shows us the full extent as to what he suffered to save mankind.