Me and Michael Medved

Michael Medved is an Orthodox Jewish movie critic who loved, loved, loved the Passion of the Christ. He's also a bit bonkers about Borat (to the grave disappointment of some of his wingnut fans.)

Like most Orthodox Jews with even a glimmer of historical awareness, I found Passion to be offensive in the extreme. Though the New Testament is silent on the subject, Jew-hater Mel Gibson saw fit to depict the Jews in his movie as Medieval caricatures, complete with big noses, beady eyes, and an unhealthy fixation on money. He also included scenes based not on the christian bible, but on the hallucinations of an insane 19th century nun. She, for example, is the one who says the cross was built by the high priest, not the New Testament, yet this scene is present in Gibson's movie, a fact that didn't prevent Gibson from marketing his movie as the "word of God."

I hated Passion, but I thought Borat was laugh-out-loud/fall-off your seat funny. In this movie, anti-Semitsm was everywhere but it was pure parody, and too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Still, some people cringed at the running of the Jews, and even I was made uncomfortable when Borat threw a handful of bills at a pair of roaches he thought were "shape shifting Jews." The rest of the movie, however, more than made up for these akward moments.

I'm not alone. Most of the OJ people I know who've seen both movies (a small population) liked Borat, and hated Passion. A few OJ people thought Borat was a little crude, and a little gross, but they also hated Passion, which, to a Jew, is basically a snuff film, and one tedious parade of whippings, beatings and other tortures. (If the nude wrestling in Borat makes you cringe, how can you stomach the abuse depicted in Passion?) And though I'm too lazy to Google for proof, I suspect that people like Daniel Lapin, and perhaps the commentariat at Cross Currents, hated the the sophomoric humor in Borat - not to mention the way he embarrassed gentiles - while simultaneously adoring Passion. I know Lapin's wife (or daughter?) avoided Borat because of the bathroom humors, but I'm not sure if she shares the Rabbi's obscenely high opinion of Mad Mel's movie.

This makes Medved the odd one out. He's the only Jewish person I know who liked both movies. I think that's a little mad, and kind of incoherent.