Offending Hollywood

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views January 19, 2004]

For years, conservatives have wondered if there were any movie Hollywood would balk at showing. Blasphemy, incessant profanity, graphic sex, obscene violence -- none of these has proved an obstacle to Hollywood, and films containing some or all off these elements have enjoyed widespread critical applause.

But we have finally found out what sort of movie will make Hollywood blanch. It must be made by an Oscar-winning director and acclaimed actor. It must be made on a set where Mass was offered daily, and where the leading actor received Holy Communion every day. And it must be based on the most important books in history, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The movie, of course, is Mel Gibson's The Passion, a film that has yet to find a distributor and has been the object of an unprecedented campaign of vilification, beginning before any of its critics had even seen it and months before its scheduled release.

-- Tom Piatak, excerpt from "Gibson and His Enemies," Chronicles magazine (November 2003).

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