March 2004
Mel and His Critics
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ opens in theaters on Ash Wednesday (February 25). It is too early to tell whether Gibson has achieved his aim of creating an artistically compelling account of the last 12 hours of Christ’s life that is also faithful to the Gospels, although those who have previewed the film are nearly universal in their praise. It is also too early to tell whether Gibson’s film will find the audience he desires or will, instead, be savaged by a chorus of politically correct critics. Regardless of how well The Passion does at the box office or with critics, however, Gibson has already achieved a great deal, and his film deserves the support of all those who care about Western art and its chief inspiration, the Gospels.
“Walk Like a Man, Talk Like a Man”
My father believed in progress almost to the end of his life, when changing his mind would scarcely have made any difference. Like most liberals, he regarded traditional institutions as so many barriers to man’s continued improvement, and yet, like most good men who are liberals, his head was contradicted by his heart: He despised the British monarchy, but he was willing to fight to defend the rights of the Stuarts.
Liberals are almost always wrong in their principles, but that does not automatically make them bad men. I do not think my father necessarily believed in the institution of marriage per se, but he was intensely loyal to his own wife, and he despised men who broke the marriage bond. He disliked any display of nationalism and viewed the flag-waving, oath-taking chauvinism of the 1950’s with contempt; yet, at the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted more than once in the Marines, though, each time, the irregularity of his diphtheria-scarred heart betrayed him to the medical examiners.
(Con)fusion on the Right
For the last year or so, neoconservatism has been the subject of an astonishing number of discussions, examinations, and denunciations by the far and “mainstream” left as well as by the right, soft and not so soft. The reason for the scrutiny, of course, is that you cannot expect to engineer an entire war, concoct a series of bold-faced lies about why the war should be fought, and identify the interests of Israel as being indistinguishable from those of the United States, and then denounce everyone who disagrees or criticizes you as “unpatriotic” and “antisemitic” without inviting comment. Nevertheless, the neoconservatives’ poor cousins, the paleoconservatives, have not been entirely exempt from scrutiny and criticism themselves. There was the botched hatchet job undertaken by David Frum in National Review last year, but, more recently, two other writers, both hostile to the paleos, have delivered their own 40 whacks at the paleo head.
Straight Eye for the Queer Guy—March 2004
PERSPECTIVE
“Walk Like a Man, Talk Like a Man”
by Thomas Fleming
From Frodo to Elijah Wood.
VIEWS
Boys Will Be Boys
by Roger D. McGrath
(If given half a chance.)
“Gay Marriage”
by Hugh Barbour, O.Praem.
From Genesis to Revelation, by way of the New Yorker.
“Gay Marriage”
At the beginning of 1999 . . . my wife Cathleen Schine, announced that she no longer wanted to be married to me. She had to leave, she had to get away for a new life, for she had mysteriously changed in her affections . . . I stood there like a rejected petitioner, chewing my innards but unwilling to fight. “I have to go to sleep now.” “But I want to talk.” Talk was the center, we used to talk over everything, endlessly . . . For almost two decades, I had felt that no thought of mine was complete until I had conveyed it to her . . . We spoke every day, we were amiable and affectionate . . . I was in a rage, but I suppressed it. Of what use was anger? I was determined not to become one of those embittered men encountered at work, at a party—men a little too articulate about “women.”
Thus David Denby, movie critic at the New Yorker, describes his reaction to his novelist wife’s leaving him in his brand new and not-particularly-recommended-here book American Sucker. What was it that had “mysteriously changed” in her affections? At least one thing for sure: She was leaving him for a woman.
Beyond Nipplegate
Another Superbowl has come and gone, and this one was a real bodice ripper. While the game was one of the closest contests in the 38-year history of the quest for the Vince Lombardi Trophy, most of the press coverage focused on the last two seconds of the AOL Halftime Show, Produced by MTV. Quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots was no doubt pleased that his team’s last-second victory was quickly overshadowed by the curve of Janet Jackson’s breast.
Parents and other interested parties expressed shock and awe, flooding the CBS switchboards with angry protestations: Whose idea was it to have the metrosexual Justin Timberlake tear off half of Janet (“Ms. Jackson, if you’re nasty”) Jackson’s Nazi dominatrix top, leaving nothing between our eyes and her breast, save a small, round metallic decoration? Were CBS executives aware that Timberlake planned to act out the words “Gonna have you nekkid by the end of this song”? Will CBS ever allow MTV to produce another halftime show? (Does it matter that both networks are owned by Viacom?) Must our children be subjected to such sights “during the dinner hour”? We, the parents of America, demand answers!
