Talk About The Passion

Bethany: You're saying that having beliefs is a bad thing?
Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.

- Dogma

On Tuesday night, Zappagirl and I attended a showing of The Passion of the Christ. Yeah, you heard me right. Apparently someone at my parents’ church bought up a bajillion preview tickets and my mother offered two of them to me.

I suppose I should mention at this point that I don’t personally subscribe to any organized religion at this time in my life. I was raised Baptist, converted to Presbyterianism as a teenager, attended a few Catholic masses with an ex-boyfriend in my early twenties, and have even tagged along with some friends at a few Buddhist celebrations. I’m an equal opportunity spiritualist, and have the nifty jewelry to prove it.

Despite my checking of the “other” box on the religion question, I have a fascination with the portrayal of religion in film. I joined the UC Film Society in the midst of a massive protest over the screening of Jean Luc Godard’s Hail Mary. (We were just trying to find an art film to fill a weekend slot. Figures we’d pick one that was banned by the Vatican and would result in death threats left on the office answering machine.) I worked the door for the Friday night showings, sat through the movie twice (well, I fell asleep in the middle of the second showing), and proclaimed the movie to be long, boring, and French. Not blasphemous.

I reprised my role at the door when we showed The Last Temptation of Christ a few years later. Despite our screening being the Cincinnati premiere, there was little furor over it. (I think there was one phone message, telling us that we were really really bad people.) I recall liking the movie, but it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen it that all I can remember is Barbara Hershey’s collagen-injected lips and Harvey Keitel playing Judas with a Brooklyn accent.

I also went to see Dogma on opening night, but that has more to do with me being a Kevin Smith fan that anything else. Despite the inclusion of loads of profanity and a rubber poop monster, I still agree with the ideas put forth in this movie more than any other religious film.

I had been interested in seeing The Passion of the Christ ever since the first rumors started flying around the internet last year. Mel Gibson was making a movie in two dead languages, with no subtitles? (Mel changed his mind, and subtitles were added for most of the movie.) The guy playing Jesus got struck by lightning on the set? Color me there!

Unfortunately, after reading countless interviews with Mel going on about the accuracy of his film (despite the use of questionable supplemental material from Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, an 18th century stigmatic nun) and people converting to Christianity on the set simply by working on the film and how Hollywood would probably reject him after this project, I started to get irritated with his holier-than-thou martyr routine. (Hey Mel? It’s hard to be a martyr when your movie is opening on over 4500 screens.)

Despite all of this, I still wanted to see the movie. Even through my disgust with the free publicity being created by the controversy, I still wanted to see it. (The woman who runs this site is accepting donations to run radio ads for the film. What a marketing gimmick! Get other people to advertise your movie and foot the bill!) Even with the absolute tackiness of the merchandising tie-ins, I still wanted to see the movie. I didn’t necessarily want to put any money in Mel’s pocket, though.

But, as I said, my parents’ church picked up the tab, and didn’t seem to have any qualms about sharing their tickets with the heathens in the black leather biker jackets. (Although someone in the bathroom did ask us to pray for the people sitting next to her, but only if we were Christians. I guess that pagan prayers are unacceptable.)

So enough with all this exposition, right? What did I think of the movie?

I thought it was thought-provoking, although I doubt they were the thoughts intended by Mel.

For a movie that is being primed as a teaching tool for churches nationwide, there seemed to be very little about compassion and the spiritual hope that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection were supposed to convey. The movie starts at Gethsemene, and with the exception of a few (really brief) flashbacks, the audience is given little history as to why all of this is happening. If someone who was not familiar with the New Testament went to see this movie, they would no doubt be pretty confused. There’s no context to the story being told here, and without that balance the movie becomes less of an evangelical tool and more of a religious snuff film. (More than one critic has dubbed it the first spiritual splatter film.) After watching two hours-plus of a man being graphically tortured and slowly put to death, it would have been nice to know a bit more about why he had been so condemned. (We are told that Caiphas and the Sanhedrin really hate Jesus, and that’s about it.) In my opinion, a story with less slow-motion scourging and more love-thy-neighbor would’ve been a much more effective ministering tool.

But then again, the name of the movie is The Passion of the Christ, which means portraying the suffering of the crucifixion. If only there had been more than that brief touch of the resurrection! (And less of that bad martial out-for-vengeance music – I later remarked to Zappagirl that I’d almost expected Jesus to flash a “that’s right, I’m back – to kick some Pharisee butt!” look at the camera before he strolled out of the tomb.)

Oops. Hope I didn’t spoil the ending there for anyone.

While watching the relentless torture scenes, I realized the majority of the audience was probably thinking something along the lines of “How awful that Jesus should have gone through such horrible pain!” I was a little less discriminating. I was thinking how awful it was that any person should have gone through such horrible pain. Zappagirl later remarked that the torture scenes brought to mind the same kind of senseless violence enacted upon Matthew Sheppard, and after reading entirely too much about that recent blemish in human history (in the name of research for a piece that I wrote for Roger Mexico while he was working on a production of The Laramie Project), I had to agree with her. How can one person do something that awful to someone else, based on disagreement of beliefs?

For all of his grandstanding about telling the authentic and definitive version of the story, there seemed to be a bit of fact-bending going on to suit the plot. Pilate is portrayed as a wishy-washy guy who spends much of his screen time contemplating what truth is and how to avoid condemning to death a man he found to be innocent. According to most historical accounts that I’ve read, he was actually quite a nasty guy whose atrocities caused him to be removed from his post by the Roman Empire. (I’m no theologian; what little knowledge I have is mostly due to watching Dateline the other night and poking around on the internet – the message boards on Fametracker for both the movie and Mel Gibson are quite enlightening.)

And was King Herod really that much of a foppish idiot? (I found myself humming “King Herod’s Song” from Jesus Christ Superstar at this point in the movie, which I suppose was better than when both Zappagirl and I started humming System of a Down at the end of the crucifixion.)

And the androgynous Satan figure was just silly and unnecessary. Yes, yes, evil is lurking everywhere. We get it.

I personally did not find the movie anti-semitic, but there are details that could be interpreted as such by those looking for justification for their bigotry. (The same can be said for pretty much all of the Bible. One needs to keep in mind that the Bible has been edited and reworded several times over the years to reflect the beliefs of the editors. I'm sure by this point most of the world has received the open letter to Dr. Laura which simply points out that you can justify practically anything with the right Bible verse.)

And for crying out loud, Mel. By this point, it’s a pretty well known fact that nails through the hands would not support a human body. Crucifixions were generally performed by driving the nails between the ulna and the radius bones in the wrist. Yes, I realize it's not as dramatic, but I thought we were going for authenticy here? Especially in the scene where your own hand makes a guest appearance?

OK, enough with the nitpicking.

On the positive side, the cinematography is breathtaking in the movie. Maia Morgernstern is wonderful as Mary (Jesus’s mother – there are entirely too many Marys in this story, which is why I think Mary Magdalene gets identified as three or four different women throughout the course of the gospels), as is Hristo Naumov Shopov as Pilate. Despite the questionable validity of how his character is written, his portrayal of a man wrestling with his conscience is one of the most moving parts of the film.

Another moving point of the movie is Mary recalling Jesus tripping and falling as a child, juxtaposed as she watches her son stumbling under the weight of the cross. Granted, the flashback was completely fabricated, but it was poignant all the same.

Overall, the movie was a very powerful (if flawed) vision, and I think that the message is lost in the wake of the graphic violence. But in the long run, this is just Mel Gibson’s version of the story, his attempts at expressing his faith on film. I’m glad I saw it and was allowed to form my own opinions on it. And as long as I’m allowed to make up my own mind, so is Mel. So is everyone else, which is what I always thought was the main tenet of Jesus’s message: unconditional love and acceptance for all of humanity.

The Legalities of Love

Before I step up on my soapbox, I thought I'd update everyone on the car insurance fiasco... it's over. I received my settlement check and paid off most of my bills with it. I got all necessary repairs done on my car. The only thing I'm still waiting on is the salvage license, which is in the hands of the Ohio BMV. So there was a happy ending to the story. It probably shouldn't have taken two months, but at least it's over. I'm a little less angst-ridden than I was before.

Now where's that soapbox?

Ever have one of those thoughts that won't leave you alone? No matter how much you try to think of other things, it's still sitting in the back of your head, metaphorically tugging at your sleeve and asking "What about me?"

I had planned to write today on movies that I've recently seen and will be seeing next week. It looks like that will have to wait until later, because the thought that's been sitting in the back of my head has moved from sleeve-tugging to slapping me upside the head and declaring "You will write about me NOW."

There's been a lot of talk on the news lately about the legality of same-sex marriage and the Defense of Marriage Act. The Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled that denying marriage to same-sex couples is unconstitutional, and I firmly agree. Of course, the irony of living in the most uptight city in the country is not lost on me.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Article XII in the Cincinnati City Charter, here it is:

"The city of Cincinnati and its various boards and commissions may not enact, adopt, enforce or administer any ordinance, regulation, rule or policy which provides that homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, status, conduct, or relationship constitutes, entitles, or otherwise provides a person with the basis to have any claim of minority or protected status, quota preference or other preferential treatment. This provision of the City Charter shall in all respects be self-executing.

"Any ordinance, regulation, rule or policy enacted before this amendment is adopted that violates the foregoing prohibition shall be null and void and of no force or effect.''

Technically, this allows a person to be refused employment, residence, practically anything because of their sexual orientation, and the person has no legal recourse. How is allowing a person to work and live somewhere like everyone else a "special right?"

There are currently efforts being made to repeal Article XII. (Unfortunately, as I have moved to the beautiful city of Norwood and am no longer an actual Cincinnati resident, I have no say in this matter.)

With all of this going on in addition to Ohio recently becoming the 38th state to ban same-sex marriages, the thought that's been nagging me lately is "WHY?"

I guess I just don't understand the argument here. One does not choose who they love. As one of my friends put it after coming out many years ago, "If I had a choice, do you think I would pick a lifestyle that immediately opens me up for discrimination, hate crimes, and loathing by much of the population? Don't you think I'd have chosen the social acceptable lifestyle?" I doubt that he woke up one morning and decided that he would choose to prefer members of the same gender as a romantic partner. I know I didn't suddenly choose to prefer men over women. It was just something I knew. And as a heterosexual woman, I have the right to marry, which would entitle me to certain benefits that would not be extended to me had I "just known" something different. If my hypothetical partner of the same gender was taken to the hospital, I would not be allowed to make any sort of medical decisions. If the visitors were restricted to "family only," I would not be able to even see my partner, no matter how long we had been together. I would not be able to add my partner to any sort of benefit package or file taxes jointly. If I chose to worship in an organized religion, many congregations would forbid me from serving as a deacon or elder.

How is this not discrimination?

There's a lot of arguments out there, and I have yet to see one that makes much sense. There seems to be a general feeling that same-sex unions will undermine the "sanctity of marriage." Sanctity is a religious term; marriage is a legal term. The church can officiate at any union it so chooses, but it's not legal until the license is filed. (I have known several couples who have had wedding ceremonies, considered themselves married, but were still "living in sin" according to the state because they never filed the paperwork.)

In the same manner, people can get married without getting the church involved. If it's not right to let same-sex couples get married because of religious views, then it should also be illegal to let atheists marry or allow someone who is not ordained by a particular church officiate in the ceremony. So much for the whole justice of the peace thing. (And where would all of those people who have their minister's license from the Universal Life Church fit in?)

(On a completely strange and unrelated tangent of this whole "what makes a marriage a marriage" argument, I would like to point out that in the Rankin-Bass Christmas special Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Santa never had his marriage to Jessica ordained by any institution because no church would accept them. They simply proclaimed their love for each other before nature under a starry sky. So according to that telling of the story, Santa and Mrs. Claus are living in sin, too. How 'bout them apples?)

I always believed that marriage had more to do with how two people felt about each other than what a church had to say about the union or what my government thought about it. Still, I understand that to get the legal benefits, you need to follow the rules and get the piece of paper. (I'm still unclear on where the church fits into the legal binding document, though.)

One of our local ministers was booted from his congregation for continuing to perform same-sex union ceremonies. He's appealing the decision, and has recently had his standing in the Presbyterian church reinstated. (I think he was the minister who married my former resident managers.)

Some people are still floating that whole song and dance about promiscuity. As someone who's been on both sides of the bar scene (as patron and bartender) for entirely too long, I can safely say no orientation has cornered the market on sleeping around or eternal devotion. Gay bars like The Metro and 1470 West were no more dens of iniquity than straight meat-markets like Burgundys or college bars like Mr. K's.

San Francisco just started issuing same-sex marriage licenses, which prompted dozens of couples to get hitched. The first couple that got married was a lesbian couple, aged 80 and 83. They'd been together for 51 years. But their relationship undermines the term "marriage" while we can marry off complete strangers on reality shows and Britney Spears can have her 55-hour marriage and annulment and there's nothing wrong with that?

Some argue that marriage should be between a man and a woman because only a man and a woman can produce offspring. By that argument, infertile couples should be banned from marriage. And what if a couple decides not to have children?

There's a related argument that says that the best possible living conditions in which to raise a child is a family unit with both a mother and a father. Well, life isn't perfect. Children are raised in all kinds of different families these days. Should we make divorce illegal, since it breaks up this ideal family unit? (And potential family units have nothing to do with whether two people should be allowed to get married anyway.)

There's an argument that opening the door to same-sex unions will pave the way for the legalization of other taboo practices, much like Rick Santorum's comments upon the Supreme Court's decision last year to overturn a Texas law banning sodomy between two consenting adults:

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

Settle down, Rick.

This is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, folks. There seems to be this strange misconception that if gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people are given the same rights that we straight folks enjoy, that mass corruption will erupt and everyone will be carrying on in the streets decadently. (Dogs and cats! Living together!) Isn't this the same kind of philosophy that was embodied by the people who opposed the civil rights movement in the 60s? Stereotyping on the basis of the color of one's skin, the way one worships, what country one's parents came from, what gender one is, who one finds attractive, or how many candles were on one's birthday cake will get us nowhere. This isn't a matter of gay rights or religious rights or women's rights.

It's about human rights. And it doesn't feel right to say that this person may do something, but another may not because of something that is part of what makes them who they are. I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of "whatever works." I don't care for asparagus, but that doesn't give me the right to ban it.

We're never going to be able to ban personal bias. Passing a law preventing discrimination of the vertically challenged will not prevent a person from personally thinking that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket because of those damned short people. And unfortunately, some people won't stop hating gay people no matter what their rights are.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, the big daddy of all Hallmark holidays. This year, let's forget the cards and flowers and candy conversation hearts that taste like antacids. Let's celebrate it by letting people be free to love whomever they choose, and allowing them to celebrate their love however they see fit.

The Last Party on the Party Patio

Once upon a great lifetime ago, I discovered the greatest radio station in the world by mistake.

I was sixteen years old, spending the summer at an honors program at Miami University. It was a little overwhelming. I was living in the dorms (my first time away from home for longer than a week), taking college classes, finding my way around a small college town that I'd only visited once before. I had no transportation. I didn't know a soul there.

Eventually, I did find my footing there, mostly due to a group of fellow students who met every night in the lounge to play Trivial Pursuit. One of the players, Jen, often brought down a milkcrate brimming full of cassettes by bands I'd never heard of. 10,000 Maniacs? The Cramps? Psychedelic Furs? For someone who was listening to bad top 40 radio, this new music was intriguing.

Another of the players commented that he'd heard some of the bands on the local radio station, which also played two hours of Doctor Demento on Sunday nights. Later that evening, I turned my dial to 97.7. It was one of my most important discoveries that summer. (The other one was the ingredients in a margarita, but that didn't really pay off for a while.)

97X was one of the first "modern rock" (remember when it was still called that?) stations in the country. They weren't owned by a huge conglomerate; the station had been purchased in 1981 by Doug and Linda Balogh and was run out of a tiny blink-and-you-missed-it building right outside of Oxford. Most of the bands that they were playing had funny names (and even funnier haircuts) like Depeche Mode and The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen. They devoted an entire hour to reggae, played local bands, and even simulcast one of the local church services (which if I'm not mistaken, immedicately preceded Dreadloxx, the reggae show - how's that for eclectic?). Winners of call-in contests either had to pick up their prizes at the station or send enough money to cover postage for the T shirt they'd won. (I drove past the station three times when I went to pick up my boxer shorts.)

For my senior year in high school, the station was my little secret. Every morning while getting ready for school, I was humming along to "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" by The Smiths and crossing my fingers that the next song would be "Invisible" by Alison Moyet.

Of course, modern rock started to become more mainstream over the years. Top 40 stations started to pick up the dancier stuff like Erasure and Pet Shop Boys. My R.E.M. albums started to disappear from my record collection, turning up eventually in my sister's bedroom. 97X continued to gain momentum as the little station that could, eventually being immortalized by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, repeating the tag line over and over much to Tom Cruise's annoyance.

97X - BAM! - The future of rock and roll.

Hey, anything that annoys Tom Cruise has to be a good thing, right?

Incidentally, that scene is one of the biggest gaffes in the entire movie. Trying to get in a tiny station broadcasting from 50 miles away was challenging. I've known people - myself included - that rearranged all of the furniture in the house in an attempt to get a clear signal. (One of the guys I knew brought a radio with him when he was apartment hunting.) The idea of picking up 97X with absolutely no static in a car driving down Columbia Parkway was absurd. It was even an absurd idea when they boosted their signal a few years back.

I recall waking up at 4:00 in the morning to hear the late night DJ going on about this new song from this guy from Cleveland and how he was going to be BIG. The song was "Head Like a Hole" by Nine Inch Nails. Almost every Memorial Day weekend has been spent listening to at least part of the Modern Rock 500. I remember calling up the station from Best Buy to get the name of a song for a customer; the DJ answered the phone (and my question) politely and quickly.

For a short period of time, I worked with one of the morning DJs. He worked part time doing telephone customer service for a department store credit card. Every Sunday he would read the Weekly World News out loud to us between phone calls. I accused him of losing his indie cred at the Christmas party because I caught him doing the electric slide. (He replied that I had no business talking, since he'd spotted me doing the hand motions to "YMCA.")

How many bands did I discover through listening? How many concert tickets have the words "97X Presents..." in bold letters across them? How many Listener's Choice Six Pack themes did I try to come up with over the course of those years? How many window stickers and keychains did I have over the years? (And what the hell happened to my boxer shorts, anyway?)

In the last few years, as ClearChannel ate up every station in the known world, I cherished my little mom and pop station on College Corner Pike. But it was inevitable. We all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. And at the end of last month,
it did. WOXY was purchased by a Dallas firm for $5.6 million. (Not a bad return on an investment - the Baloghs purchased the station for under half a million.) WOXY will be moving to an internet-only format somewhere around May 1st. I'm afraid to think of what kind of programming will inhabit 97.7 on the radio dial after that point.

It's kind of strange. I just programmed my car radio presets a few weeks ago, and when trying to figure out what to program, the first station I thought of was 97X. It's been the middle preset on my radio in every one of my cars since 1987. The switch to internet isn't going to affect me all that much; I've never been able to get clear reception in my new apartment, and it was already included as one of the preset iTunes stations. But, in a way, it seems like a part of my life is over. I'll never have to make that drive up Route 27 to pick up the CD I won, and use it as an excuse to visit uptown Oxford at eat Bruno's pizza under the water tower.

Oh, wait. The water tower is gone too. And Bruno's has moved as well. (Just to the other side of the square, but they're no longer right on High Street.)

If you need me, I'll be over in the corner, mourning my lost childhood. And looking for my Future of Rock and Roll boxer shorts.