United States President Donald Trump’s appointment of Mel Gibson to be one of three special ambassadors to Hollywood brought the latter’s antisemitic history into the limelight again, including Gibson’s drunken anti-Jewish rant when a police officer arrested him for drunk driving in 2006 (which he later profusely apologized for); and his ugly alleged “oven dodger” comment to Jewish actress Winona Ryder in 2020.
Gibson’s most harmful action was directing, financing and co-writing his antisemitic 2004 “Passion of Christ” film – which earned over $600 million and was seen by hundreds of millions of people, fomenting anti-Jewish hatred. Gibson’s film libels Jews as responsible for Jesus’ torments and death while whitewashing the cruel Roman Governor Pontius Pilate who actually ordered and was responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion.
The film begins with Judas betraying Jesus for silver coins; portrays Jews and Jewish priests and scribes as violent brutish accusers and tormenters of Jesus; and portrays Pontius Pilate telling Jesus: “Your High Priests have delivered you to me; They want me to have you executed.” The film then absurdly shows Pilate exonerating Jesus, but then “giving in” after Jewish priests and crowds demand Jesus’ crucifixion. The film also shows a Jewish crowd saying, “His blood be on us and on our children” – a phrase frequently cited as evidence of the Jewish people’s collective guilt. The phrase was so incendiary that Gibson was reportedly forced to drop it from the films’ subtitles, although it remained in the spoken Aramaic. It’s particularly awful that Gibson included this 40 years after the Catholic Church’s 1965 Nostra Aetate, which ended the libel of “collective Jewish guilt.”
In sum, Gibson’s film promoted a thoroughly antisemitic narrative, likely to engender hatred and violence against Jews. Unsurprisingly, Al Jazeera reported that Palestinian Authority dictator Mahmoud Abbas was “moved” by the film, and that pirated copies were the best-selling film among the Palestinian Arabs in the “West Bank” (Judea-Samaria). (Abbas incites Arabs to spill Jewish blood and pays terrorists rewards for murdering Jews.)
After his drunken anti-Jewish rant in 2006, Gibson released a statement seeking the Jewish community’s forgiveness and asking the community to assist helping him learn how he could make amends.
Perhaps being appointed an ambassador to Hollywood is that opportunity to make amends – especially now that Gibson is planning what he calls an “acid trip” sequel to Passion of Christ. Simply put, Gibson can change his libelous, antisemitic “Passion” narrative to one that stops falsely blaming the Jews – in both his sequel and by revising the libels in the existing film.
Those sorts of changes have been done by others with long histories of purveying such antisemitic libels – most notably, the Oberammergau Passion Play.
Beginning in 1634, once a decade for 360 years, the town of Oberammergau, Germany produced the infamous vile antisemitic Oberammergau passion play, libeling Jews with medieval antisemitic tropes and as eternally responsible for killing Jesus Christ. Hitler saw the 1930 and 1934 (300th Anniversary) Oberammergau Passion plays, and afterwards proclaimed, “Never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed.” The Oberammergau passion plays were copied in towns throughout Europe, and incited anti-Jewish hatred and violence.
Finally, in 1990, the Oberammergau passion play changed when Christian Stückl became the play’s director. The play stopped depicting Jews as eternal murderers of Jesus; highlighted Jesus’ Jewishness; and made it clear that only Roman Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to death.
Mel Gibson should do the same.
{Reposted from the ZoA website}
