OK, OK, you say. Enough on The Passion of the Christ. It's only a movie, right?
Well, it is. And it isn't.
Obviously, Mel Gibson's religious revenge melodrama has become more than just a movie. It's now a cultural event -- a broad volley, as it were, in the raging Culture Wars. In that context, it's also become a kind of Rorschach test for the million-dollar question, Which Side Are You On?
And it is in that respect that the film has real significance -- not so much for what it actually says, but for what it symbolizes to the religious right: namely, a hard right hook thrown at the forces of "anti-Christian" secularism. A blow against the liberal empire, as it were.
The real role of The Passion is to serve as a propaganda victory in service of a larger cause -- namely, the multi-faceted offensive to remake America as a "Christian nation" by fundamentalist True Believers. By leaping to promote it, the right reinforces the idea of remaking of the Constitution -- and by extension, American society -- currently being promoted on a variety of fronts. These range from the "Constitution Restoration Act" to the rabid right's railing about Janet Jackson's exposed breast to the fight over gay marriage to the appearance of The Passion on the scene.
It may be tempting to view these cases in isolation. The religious right's legislation seems unlikely to pass. The issue of gay marriage seems like it is working its way through the courts. And on the outside, The Passion is just another movie.
But placed in their larger context, they collectively represent a serious surge in the power of the theocratic right to in fact enact their agenda. This is not merely an abstract problem, or Margaret Atwoodesque paranoia. It's manifesting itself right now in our everyday lives.
| 