A Passion for Passions

I’m grateful to Mel. He made a movie that is not historically nuanced, probably on balance untrue in its depiction of a rebellious anti-Roman Jewish “street” that gave endless trouble to its overlords. The Jews were a real pain for those trying to manage an empire. But that’s the business. Sort of like being a landlord in a land with a maximized notion of “no rent control.” Bottom line: The “cozy” relationship between the leaders of the Jews back then and the Romans was not about equals. The head lamb (known at slaughterhouses as the “Judas Goat”) trying to cut a deal with the butcher was more like it.

None of that, in fact, matters, though, to me. What the movie did was stir up a lot of what’s bubbling under the surface in this “so morally evolved” America. Like the racism that sprouted up at Claremont in California last week, or the episode of racial epithets among Chicago fireman. Racism, anti-Semitism, whatever. Always there, right under the surface. Not to mention Spain and the to-date unconfirmed claim that al-Qaida blew up all those people as payback for the present “crusade” and what the hell, the original Crusades. History as a series of grudges held for thousands of years. Yup, that’s moral evolution for you.

The point of the movie, for me, is not really its content. Right or wrong, pretty much every stab at the “real” history of anything is interpretive, if not just plain wrong anyway. And when it comes to Hollywood, please. Cowboys and Indians? Crooks and criminals? Any story you care to tell is at best your best shot at it, but never the underlying reality of what happened. I heard a story once in which a man who studied ancient history was asked by a pragmatist why he spent time on stuff that happened thousands of years ago. He replied that only with the passage of that much time did you have even a chance of getting past the emotions of the immediate to gain some perspective on things.

So for me Mel’s movie showed these emotions that lurk a second under the surface of our everyday lives. Some preacher in the South comes out of it so moved he puts a sign out in front of his church that says the Jews killed Christ. Bam, so much for the progress this country has made getting past anti-Semitism since “Gentleman’s Agreement.”

Right under the surface, a big splashy Hollywood movie can cause all these feelings. So did stained glass windows in their day. The story of Christ always gets everyone going.

But it could be any story. In Canada? French and English. Fights between Muslim, Jew, Christians and factionalism even within the same religion…Ok, Maybe the Buddhists aren’t violent. Too bad it turns out to be so handy a philosophy for samurais and modern warriors, though.

So Mel caused this phenom where the anti-Semitism and the anti anti-Semitism all came up again. Lest we forget it’s still there.

Jews have a special place as a global brand of being picked on, at least given the percentages. But everyone gets the business end of someone else’s ire over something, wherever and whoever you are.

Rather than personalizing Mel’s particular story, like whether it’s true or not, the whole “Passion” episode for me is about passion itself. Let’s just consider what it has highlighted. The conflict and blame, the yin and yang of historical grudgery.

So thanks Mel. It isn’t about your specific story. It just brings everything and everyone out and to the surface again. Reminds us that we are as passionate (and I do not mean that in a good way) as the guys we think are crazy martyrs. Crying, Angry, Frightened, Stoic, Cruel, Hopeful...one species all. Still dying for what we believe, whatever that story is, more often than living for what we believe.

An old story, always with us Still too true. ¶ 9:55 AM