Failures

There are two failures I want to talk about.  The first is the failure of American intellectuals to admit they were wrong about Mel Gibson's movie Passion of Christ.

American intellectuals of all persuasions and religious orientations were certain that the deliberately anti-Semitic nature of Gibson's 2004 movie and his unwillingness to change the most inciteful parts would encourage and stimulate anti-Semitic behavior.

The Gibson movie was seen by roughly one hundred million people worldwide and there was no increase in anti-Semitic acts.

I am not surprised that American intellectuals never examined nor apologized for their error. Intellectuals rarely have any degree of self honesty.  Nevertheless I still read what they write.

The second failure is the failure of the movie to generate any acts of anti-Semitism.

The failure of the movie to elicit a behavioral response is something I have often seen and no one I know seems to understand or remember.  Movies almost never generate actionable behavior, whether good or bad.  Movies just don't have that power.

Gibson is a bigoted Catholic  asshole, which is evident in the lawsuit by his co-writer on the Passion movie, nevertheless he only made money on his movie, he didn't get the world to join him in hating the Jews, the way he wanted.