[Marxism] RE: David Quarter's response

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Quarter misses what I think is significant in this issue, which is
not what the white Jesus means to Black people, but what this image
means in a white racist society.

And note that I didn't suggest Samuel L. Jackson for the part.  My
suggestions were lightly but cinematically thought out. I also think
that Gibson exercised good judgment in not playing Jesus himself. Nor
would John Wayne have been a good choice. I admit that you might want
Ice Cube to lose some weight, but I am convinced he could do a very
creditable job.

In the United States, "nonracial" casting of Jesus means white, which is
actually a form of racial casting.  If your family's response doesn't
lead you to think that what we have seen on this matter (not just with
Gibson) is deeply racial casting, then I think you are looking at the
question from an angle that is not informative about this.

In my experience, most nationally-conscious Blacks -- in contrast to the
professional nationalist layer which is fairly often  prone to demagogy
in my experience -- are not viscerally antiwhite (although in my
experience many tend to be cool, watchful, critical, and alert in many
of their dealings with whites).  There is therefore no reason  why they
should find images of a white Jesus to be especially repellent. But that
doesn't mean that the images themselves have not been determined by a
racist culture and society.

The Europeans have created their own "white" Jesus and largely imposed
him on the world -- not only on Blacks but on the indigenous people of
the Americas, and so on.  That is a fact.  I remember the outrage when
some religious Blacks began to issue pictures of or advocate a Black
Jesus.  I remember the outrage when the "extremist" idea of "Black is
beautiful" was raised. All this has faded over the years, but the
society that produced it is still here.  There are religious groups that
to this day insist that Jesus was white or even an Aryan. I don't object
to Blacks using white images of Jesus, but they are products of a
certain culture and a certain society. When you consider the effort
Gibson's efforts to be "authentic" and his contrasting resort to white
casting of the major roles, you can't ignore the social and political
reality that this reflects that shape the market he was appealing to.

I also don't think that Catholic belief is fanaticism, although Gibson's
beliefs seem to have an element of fanaticism, which I personally don't
find repellent, although it's not my preferred form of fanaticism.
Personally, when it comes to movies about religion, I prefer those whose
expression of religiosity has a hard, intense edge like "The Seventh
Seal" or, more recently, "The Rapture."

And again, I was not making or implying any judgment at all on the
movie.  The popular reaction, to me, counts for more than the moaning of
liberal critics about how the movie fails in its duty to "uplift" and
preach "love" in a liberal Christian way. None of this will decide
whether I like the movie or not.

I don't at all assume that the positive reaction of the mass audience is
a sign of bad judgment on their part. And I have no beef with Gibson as
an actor or film-maker. (I didn't see The Patriot but I thought
Braveheart was fine, and, as an actor, I have generally found him
entertaining and I think Conspiracy Theory -- where it now appears he
was playing himself -- was an inspired performance.)
Fred Feldman



-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Feldman [mailto:ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 9:38 PM
To: Fred Feldman
Cc: Fred Feldman
Subject: MARXMAIL site, 100, archive; NATION, MILITANT, MR, NLR


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