Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Saturday
History Professor Richard Fox Discusses "The Passion"
Aired February 21, 2004 - 14:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, let's talk more about Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ."
Professor Richard Fox teaches history with an emphasis on religion at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He's also the author of the new book "Jesus in America."
Good to see you, professor.
PROF. RICHARD FOX, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Good to see you. Thank you for having of me.
WHITFIELD: Well, talk of Jesus has been taboo of sorts to be on the silver screen. Is there something about the movie going public now that makes this film more acceptable in many thousand theaters across the country starting Wednesday?
FOX: I think that's a great question.
And let me just say first that Mel Gibson's movie is in a long tradition of Jesus movies that goes all the way back to the silent era. What's remarkable to me about this phenomenon of the Gibson movie is that he is a Catholic, and this is a very Catholic movie relying on very old style Catholic images of Jesus, the suffering, bleeding, wounded Jesus. I know this imagery intimately myself because I grew up in the same pre-Vatican II Catholic Church that Mel Gibson did. And I understand the spiritual power of this image of Jesus.
For a young Catholic growing up in the '50s or '60s, this was a very potent Jesus model for young Catholics how one might actually give up one's life, suffer unendurable pain for one's fellow human beings.
So this is a powerful vision. And I think what's so remarkable now is that there's a big crossover apparently in which evangelical Protestants, historically the very group that was most resistant to this Catholic imagery, is now apparently very supportive of this very Catholic approach to Jesus.
WHITFIELD: Well, perhaps this kind of graphic detail is something we haven't seen on the silver screen or even in television. It's been very modified, and maybe perhaps, you know, to make it more palatable for, you know, consumers' consumption.
But now there is criticism being lodged against Mel Gibson, not only for the subject matter but his approach. And that perhaps, you know, criticism is that he is distorting the truth, that he is making it too graphic just to appeal to the viewing public. And now there is talk of anti-Semitism as well.
FOX: Right.
Well, in my book, "Jesus in America," I go back and look at this long-standing Catholic Jesus -- there's been 400 years of this Catholic Jesus in the United States and colonial America before. And this fixation of the suffering body is so central to that vision of Jesus that it's really not surprising when we find a Catholic making this film at the start of the 21st Century. It's very traditional.
I think the remarkable thing about this Protestant embrace of this particular Jesus at this moment is that it may be a brand new departure in the American way of experiencing Jesus. This evangelical Protestant overture to Gibson and Gibson's overture to evangelical Protestants, I think, is something brand new.
The anti-Semitism charge, I think, is a but misplaced. We know from Mel Gibson's own lips on the Diane Sawyer interview and other interviews that he is not an anti-Semite, and I take him at his word. There's no evidence for seeing him as anti-Semitic.
I think the issue, though -- and I also discuss this in my book, "Jesus in America," -- is not whether the filmmaker is anti-Semitic, and not even really whether the film is anti-Semitic, but whether the film perpetuates negative stereotypes about Jews that go all the way back to the very first passion plays before, film that are then perpetuated....
WHITFIELD: So bottom line, you're feeling like viewers need to be -- you know, the American public or the international viewing public, their intelligence...
FOX: Yes.
WHITFIELD: You know, they need to give them the benefit of the doubt, that perhaps people can watch this film in an intelligent manner and take away with it what may be touching or emotional to each individual, and not that anything forced down their throats.
FOX: Well, let me just say that for my viewing of it -- I saw it two weeks ago in the rough cut, but I suspect it's pretty much the same at this point. There are very inspiring elements in the film for me especially, the depiction of Jesus' relation with his mother, Mary.
And then there are very negative stereotypes of Jews that go all the way back to the first films, Jews depicted as a swarming mass of irrational and vindictive and the people who really are out to get Jesus. Also there are people in the Roman population out to get Jesus in this film.
But I think there are stereotypes that are negative that the film would have been better for omitting.
WHITFIELD: And I'm sorry to interrupt your thoughts, we are running out of time. Professor Richard Fox, thanks very much for joining us, of UCLA.
FOX: Thank you for having me.
WHITFIELD: And the book is "Jesus in America."
FOX: Thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 21, 2004 - 14:23 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, let's talk more about Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ."
Professor Richard Fox teaches history with an emphasis on religion at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He's also the author of the new book "Jesus in America."
Good to see you, professor.
PROF. RICHARD FOX, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Good to see you. Thank you for having of me.
WHITFIELD: Well, talk of Jesus has been taboo of sorts to be on the silver screen. Is there something about the movie going public now that makes this film more acceptable in many thousand theaters across the country starting Wednesday?
FOX: I think that's a great question.
And let me just say first that Mel Gibson's movie is in a long tradition of Jesus movies that goes all the way back to the silent era. What's remarkable to me about this phenomenon of the Gibson movie is that he is a Catholic, and this is a very Catholic movie relying on very old style Catholic images of Jesus, the suffering, bleeding, wounded Jesus. I know this imagery intimately myself because I grew up in the same pre-Vatican II Catholic Church that Mel Gibson did. And I understand the spiritual power of this image of Jesus.
For a young Catholic growing up in the '50s or '60s, this was a very potent Jesus model for young Catholics how one might actually give up one's life, suffer unendurable pain for one's fellow human beings.
So this is a powerful vision. And I think what's so remarkable now is that there's a big crossover apparently in which evangelical Protestants, historically the very group that was most resistant to this Catholic imagery, is now apparently very supportive of this very Catholic approach to Jesus.
WHITFIELD: Well, perhaps this kind of graphic detail is something we haven't seen on the silver screen or even in television. It's been very modified, and maybe perhaps, you know, to make it more palatable for, you know, consumers' consumption.
But now there is criticism being lodged against Mel Gibson, not only for the subject matter but his approach. And that perhaps, you know, criticism is that he is distorting the truth, that he is making it too graphic just to appeal to the viewing public. And now there is talk of anti-Semitism as well.
FOX: Right.
Well, in my book, "Jesus in America," I go back and look at this long-standing Catholic Jesus -- there's been 400 years of this Catholic Jesus in the United States and colonial America before. And this fixation of the suffering body is so central to that vision of Jesus that it's really not surprising when we find a Catholic making this film at the start of the 21st Century. It's very traditional.
I think the remarkable thing about this Protestant embrace of this particular Jesus at this moment is that it may be a brand new departure in the American way of experiencing Jesus. This evangelical Protestant overture to Gibson and Gibson's overture to evangelical Protestants, I think, is something brand new.
The anti-Semitism charge, I think, is a but misplaced. We know from Mel Gibson's own lips on the Diane Sawyer interview and other interviews that he is not an anti-Semite, and I take him at his word. There's no evidence for seeing him as anti-Semitic.
I think the issue, though -- and I also discuss this in my book, "Jesus in America," -- is not whether the filmmaker is anti-Semitic, and not even really whether the film is anti-Semitic, but whether the film perpetuates negative stereotypes about Jews that go all the way back to the very first passion plays before, film that are then perpetuated....
WHITFIELD: So bottom line, you're feeling like viewers need to be -- you know, the American public or the international viewing public, their intelligence...
FOX: Yes.
WHITFIELD: You know, they need to give them the benefit of the doubt, that perhaps people can watch this film in an intelligent manner and take away with it what may be touching or emotional to each individual, and not that anything forced down their throats.
FOX: Well, let me just say that for my viewing of it -- I saw it two weeks ago in the rough cut, but I suspect it's pretty much the same at this point. There are very inspiring elements in the film for me especially, the depiction of Jesus' relation with his mother, Mary.
And then there are very negative stereotypes of Jews that go all the way back to the first films, Jews depicted as a swarming mass of irrational and vindictive and the people who really are out to get Jesus. Also there are people in the Roman population out to get Jesus in this film.
But I think there are stereotypes that are negative that the film would have been better for omitting.
WHITFIELD: And I'm sorry to interrupt your thoughts, we are running out of time. Professor Richard Fox, thanks very much for joining us, of UCLA.
FOX: Thank you for having me.
WHITFIELD: And the book is "Jesus in America."
FOX: Thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
