Amman – Italian commercial television network Mediaset is in Jordan shooting a romantic comedy on the life of Jesus.
Jordan’s Royal Film Commission said yesterday that The Holy Family is being directed by Italy’s Raffaele Mertes, who has made several religious productions. The two-part TV film “seeks to narrate the human side and the interrelationships between Joseph, Mary and Jesus, starting with the rough, gruff but good-hearted 40-year-old carpenter who falls in love with a girl many years his junior”, the Royal Film Commission said.
“The work is a romantic comedy centred on the great love story between Mary and Joseph,” it added. The film is being shot at Petra, famous for its rose-red temples hewn from rock. – Sapa-AFP [source]
I don’t understand this world. Have we run out of characters in the millions of years of existance that we’re left only with religious figures of whom to reduce their entire life’s work into a Romantic Comedy? Will it be Tom Hanks playing Jesus and Meg Ryan as Mary? For heaven’s sake go make a situation comedy staring Ghenghis Khan, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, where they sit at a coffee shop all day and talk about nothing. It writes itself!
And for that matter, I’m really sick of living in a world where people profit off of Jesus bobble-head dolls made by 8 year-olds in some sweat shop in Bangladesh. The very idea must conflict with at least one of the commandments.
I wrote an article yesterday “Blasphemy in the Arab world”…
From your post, its obvious that you feel that such movies are blasphemous. I would think of it the same way to be honest with you, Yet i dont think its the right thing to try to fight back against such movies. I’m not sure:
http://bluesoceanramble.blogspot.com/2006/05/blasphemy-in-arab-world.html
Blue, you wrote an interesting post. The thing is, I never said anything about fighting back. What I’m saying is that I find it strange (and absurd) that we’ve resorted to picking on religious figures who are either revered or respected by millions of people. As for blasphemy, I find it insulting as a Muslim that the life of Jesus pbuh is wittled down to a romantic comedy.
you said something interesting in your post, that had there been no protest then the publicity would never have happened. that’s very true. but what is the alternative? silence? i’m obviously against violent protests the likes of which were seen in a few cases throughout the Muslim world. But the Muslim world constitutes over a billion of the world’s population; are we to base the concerns of all these people as emodied by the violent spirit of hooligans? there are ways and means of which to voice one’s concern, and be they moderate or radical they will no doubt contribute to the publicity of the object. But at the end of the day, when the dust clears, at least people will know that it was not met with silence. the same way that violence breeds violence, the same can be said of silence.
thanks for your comment 🙂