"'It's a deeply religious movie. We live in a multiracial country and we needed to show sensitivity toward other religions, particularly Islam.'"
I think I'm right in saying that Malays have their religion on their ID cards so this is enforcible at point of entry ... but it seems a bit much to say that Muslims couldn't go to see it as if they aren't grown up enough to make up their own minds. Actually it could create a bit of a biteback effect: by contrabanding it to Muslims, it could create a bootleg market among them.
I guess the issue could be about not exposing Muslims to the Christian 'heresy' that Christ was crucified -though whether the traditional Muslim interpretation of the Quran is correct on this point is another issue: it seems to me that the passages cited are capable of an interpretation that sits well with the well-grounded history that the crucifixion of Jesus did in fact take place.
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Aside from the rights and wrongs of this kind of censorship I would have to say that I wouldn't be too disappointed that Muslims may not get to see this film. I don't believe the movie to be a broad enough representation of the life of Christ - to say nothing of the breadth of the Christian message - the emphasis on the brutality of the crucifixion (regardless of any 'well-grounded history' of its authenticity) serves only to distort the whole story (in my humble opinion) so any 'message' would be too wrapped up in Gibson's garbled RC/fundamentalist viewpoint. Which begs the question - what do we hope to achieve by using this film 'evangelistically' either implicitly or explicitly?
I actually tend to agree with you Hadge: though I wasn't rewally thinking of its evangelistic use -the expereince of showing in Thailand [blogged a month or two back] says that Gibson's rendition of the stations of the cross may not communicate well outside of Christian cultures. As I indicate the issue for me is of censorship with religious overtones and the difficulty official Muslim 'gatekeepers' have with allowing other views to be acknowledged..
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