Re: The Passion of the Christopher

From: jjj@io.com
Date: Sun 25 Apr 2004 - 20:43:37 GMT

  • Next message: Kenneth Van Oost: "Re: The Passion of the Christopher"

    One meme that I have not seen analyzed anywhere in the media criticism or online discussion of this film is the cultural meme that causes us to feel that it is bad, distasteful, or somehow wrong to depict violence/blood/gore in amount that the meme dictates as "excessive". This meme is so prevalent that in general, people seem to take it as a universal human truth that something past a certain level of realistic violence and gore is "offensive", "uncalled for", or that it implies the filmmaker has some kind of "sick obsession".

    Yet it is our modern culture that hides us from death, putting it in neat wooden boxes, ambulances, and the news editing room room floor. Most humans that have ever lived, especially in ancient times, witnessed death and violence as a regular event. Many people today, on the other hand, have never even seen a corpse.

    Jon

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