Word: hollywood
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...furor over the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which Cameron is producing, was caused by an unholy alliance of two Christian-right bugbears: science and Hollywood. (If only Hillary Clinton could have been involved too--Pat Robertson's head might well have exploded.) But while critics picked apart the theory's science, it was clear which half of the alliance really irritated the faithful. "Over the years, Hollywood has attacked and mocked Christianity," said National Clergy Council president the Rev. Rob Schenck in a statement. Now, a "Hollywood filmmaker is denying the divinity...
Christians normally reserve this vehemence for a different place name beginning with H. But this was war. Hollywood, no longer satisfied with trying to undermine Christianity, was taking a shovel, pickax and video camera and trying to physically destroy it. The man who showed us Kate Winslet's breasts in Titanic was boasting that he had brought God to Manhattan in a box and DNA-tested him like a dinosaur femur...
...dustup aggravated old, sometimes ugly, tensions between Christians and Hollywood--including, yes, that one. "It is an evident and clear truth that Jews control Hollywood productions," wrote a respondent to a post on the New York Times' the Lede blog, while others made anti-Semitic insinuations about Israeli-born Tomb director Simcha Jacobovici. Meanwhile, in a debate following the TIME.com blog post that reported first word of the documentary, some defenders of the film taunted Christians as "weak and defeated...
...Hollywood and Christianity may have more in common in this case than it seems. Certainly--without judging the validity of the claim--there was a showbizzy, Al Capone's vault feel to the documentary's announcement and promotion. But it relies on its own appeal to faith, basing a bold claim on disputed, 2,000-year-old evidence (the film is not called The Lost Tomb of Jesus or Some Guy with the Same Name). Some of its advocates, defending a film they have not seen, show an ardor and will to believe that seem, dare I say it, religious...
Likewise--without judging the validity of religion--the great religious texts of history are compelling in part because they are, well, Hollywood: that is, great stories with conflict, pathos and magic. A man steals fire from the gods; a father is commanded to kill his son; gods disguise themselves as animals...