Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
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Passionate about Passion
Posted on March 1, 2004 in Myths & Mysticism
Updated
Not really about the movie, but about the reaction to the film that I am seeing happening across the religious spectrum — from the denunciations of Wiccans who fear a return of a somewhat subdued Burning Times to Georgia cinema goers who threw a fit when a theater printed the numbers “666” on their tickets.
I love folklore. I love to observe how it enters daily life and affects us. The excitement I feel is that of a geologist who has heard about a volcano rising out of a parking lot not fifty miles from his house or a zoologist who has an infestation of rare moles entrenched beneath his impatiens. How often is it that you get to see people all around being passionate about a myth?
Even those who refuse to see it have firey things to say. Consider the case of Frog:
I haven’t seen the movie. I don’t want to see the movie. I will not see the movie. I won’t rent it. I won’t borrow it from you when it comes out on DVD. You can’t make me see the movie. I won’t do it. Frame it as important to my overall understanding of the tradition of my faith, frame it as the nexus of pop culture and politics and religion, frame it as my chance to hear Aramaic, frame it as a one-time opportunity to see a lily-white Jesus Christ (what? This isn’t the only chance?). But, no. No, thank you. You go ahead and see the movie. I’ll be repotting my plants or something.
The fact that I’m not seeing the movie doesn’t mean that it’s okay to tell me about it, blow by blow (ah, yes), either. You’ll need to work through your reaction to it with someone else, because I don’t want to know. No, I’m not hiding from the realities of my faith. I’m not hiding from seeing the sacrifice.
I will probably do the same as Frog except I find it so interesting to watch how this is playing out on the blogs and in the hamburger stands.
Conversely, Bill Hopkins of Prairie Point — who fills in when I go on vacation — went to see it yesterday. I’m waiting to see what he got out of it. If he was able to sit through it. He wrote about it.
Based on Bill’s comments and those of Jenny at 111:2, I may wait for the DVD to come out and watch it then. But then Yule wrote this. Hmmmm!
