Controversy Reporting And The Passion of the Christ

Seems like I'm making daily updates on this picture. Get used to it, as this look at how the media covers stories has me fascinated. I'm also waiting for the movie with bated breath. I think it will be a true stunner.

Anyway, Peggy Noonan has a great column at Opinion Journal about a controversy related to Mel Gibson's movie. There apparently was a mini-scandal over whether or not the Pope had said, after seeing The Passion of the Christ, "It is as it was." Read the column for the details. My take is that he did say it and got worried over controversy resulting from his words, so he retracted it.

The money quote, as always, is well padded by the "controversy" stuff. Here it is:

Let me tell you of my experience in the drama. This summer I was invited to a Washington screening of the film. I went with some trepidation: Could the charges of anti-Semitism be true? I didn't think that Mel Gibson would set out to create a deliberately anti-Semitic piece of work; that kind of movie would have been rejected by audiences and lambasted by critics. But people can do ignorant things and thoughtless things, and their work can be destructive. I didn't know what Mr. Gibson's film would be. So I watched, and found myself moved and inspired by the film, which isn't about hatred but love, and love's continuing war with evil. It is a film that engenders awe, gratitude, and no small amount of self-examination. What role do I play in the crucifixion of Christ, and what role would I have played if I had been there?

I was relieved. It is a story about Jews and Romans, about Jewish saints and sinners and Roman brutes and cynics, but it isn't really about Jews and Romans; it's about humanity. It's about us.

She really was moved by the film. But see how she has to cover it? The rest of the column is a whole lot of nothing, a bit of sugar whipped furiously into a cotton-candy mountain.

And that's how the press has to work, it seems. She couldn't have written a straight-up piece extolling the movie, but had to frame it in the usual "this person's work has gotten criticism from these people" template. A sham controversy continues to get traction, it grows in the retelling and gains value. Small details that don't fit the narrative now established -- like the false ADL charges that launched the controversy -- are dropped by successive carriers. The story shifts from Mel's awesome achievement to the petty charges against it. An uncomfortable thing for the major media (religion) is rendered safe to touch now, as it is neutered in the process.

Next month, as the movie nears, you'll see Gibson and the stars being forced to divert from talking about the movie to talking about the controversy. And, in the usual handling of these things, the ADL will be given equal forum to Gibson (split screen debate) and will use the chance to push whatever agenda it really is they are pursuing. Talk about the substance and message of the movie will give way to blather about nothing. An important eruption of genuine religiousity into the public culture will become yet another media story in the daily train of such things.

"...And enterprise of great pith and moment / with this regard their currents turn awry."