AN ANTIDOTE TO THE PASSION? (4/13/04)

Country Yossi and Schlock Rock did not make it to Greenville with their Chol Ha-Moed extravaganzas, so Linda and I took ourselves last Sunday to see The Alamo.

Wilson’s snapshot review: If you are expecting a cinematographic masterpiece, do not go. If you are expecting historical authenticity, do not go. If you are expecting penetrating character studies, do not go. If you are expecting an Oliver Stone style Alamo-as-conspiracy, forgeddaboudit.

If, however, you are craving a booster shot of unapologetic Americana, where the good guys are always swashbuckling and the bad guys always sneer and talk in those phony Frito Bandito accents, you have found the right place. Ol’ Walt himself might as well have risen from the Cryovac to resurrect Davy, Bowie and Travis, save for the fact that in this version the language is a little raunchier, the coonskin cap has just a cameo as part of a spoof, and Davy provides comic relief at his own execution.

However the tale is told, though, we celebrate the Alamo as America’s paradigmatic story of how honor and ideals can be victorious even in the midst of defeat. It may, in fact, be the only instance that America has consecrated a battle that ended in the utter decimation of its heroic men and women.

Many Christians will likely seethe at this analogy. Yet, I see the message of The Alamo as an antidote to Gibson’s putative “masterpiece,” The Passion – two hours of a body being ripped to shreds, with no regard whatsoever for Jesus’s ennobling earthly teachings nor his transcendence of death. These are points that my Fundamentalist Christian colleagues tell me we are to “infer.” With all due respect, these should not be inferred. These should be of the essence especially to Christians, even if Jews and Christians forever disagree as to whether Jesus’s resurrection has sole redemptive power.

The analogy? Who were the residents of the Alamo? A ragtag bunch, motivated by honorable ideals. Their opponents? The meticulously disciplined Mexican army, led by Santa Anna, apparently more bold than Gibson’s Pontius Pilate (and seemingly with no lapdog Jews encouraging him), but as big a coward when the tide turned. Santa Anna’s objective? To put down a gaggle of upstarts who wanted more than they deserved.

Everyone knew the results before the siege began. Most of the fighters were killed outright, but others, among them women and children, were raped and torturously murdered. The battle symbolically concluded as Crockett, beaten, bloody and hogtied, was brought before Santa Anna, who had him skewered with bayonets.

End of story? No. Traumatized and remorseful over their failure to respond, reinvigorated, inspired by the valor of the Alamo’s defenders, Houston and his troops counterattacked and vanquished Santa Anna’s army. Santa Anna himself was captured, and some of Houston’s men demanded his execution. Houston, though, spared his life in return for the land that they held sacred.

The Alamo is one great, simple, straightforward story of how honor and decency can overcome the greatest hatred, evil, death and defeat. If I were you, I would risk a few cuss words to take my kids to see it and then talk some straight talk about the world at its worst and its best and the little, or big, things that they can do to help redeem it:

Some people have good values. Others have none whatsoever. You must find the right ones, and, with God as our Guide, we are here to help you. Some people do not have it easy because of their good values, especially when they stand up for them. Sometimes they may even have to die for them. This is the hardest thing we may ever have to say to you, but one day, you may even have to give your life because of your values. Then we can only pray that someone might become so overwhelmed by the harm that good people have suffered at the hands of the evil ones that s/he will resolve to do something about it. And, when s/he does, we pray that it need not be with WMD’s but with understanding, compassion and positive example – prevent, rather than punish. Remember, Houston could have killed Santa Anna, but that would have proved nothing.

I guess that this kind of blasphemy will score no points with Christians whatsoever, but in my humble opinion, if Gibson were not so gore-obsessed, this is the story that he should have been telling. Then, we Jews and Christians could quibble over whether only Jesus’s transcendence of death had redemptive power or whether that inspiration came through all righteous people who had suffered through the hands of the wicked. But, otherwise the essence would remain the same, and the world’s redemption would be that much closer.

Let’s face it. We Jewish folks are not going to make a blockbuster response to The Passion anytime soon. No need. The Alamo pretty much says it all already. And you don’t need to be a Vatican theologian to figure it out.