on Gibson's "Anti-Semitic Snuff Film"
Make a movie about slavery. Make it real. Show the inhuman degradation of innocent people, and, more difficult to watch, show their compromise with that degradation in order to survive.
Show the terror of lynch mobs and the whip and what it was actually like for a man to be whipped into unconsciousness.
You can't. You won't. You don't have the strength of purpose or vision. You don't like it, you know that, but you don't want to know what it was, not really. It's bad and you want it to go away.
Plus it might be construed as anti-white or something.
The crucifixion is an absolutely central pivot in the Christian faith. And yet most people can't get near it as what it was.
Saving Private Ryan was horrifically violent and yet it was celebrated for its honesty, for its graphic portrayal of violence, and combat as it really is. What's the difference?
msg Mar.02.04 in the comments at Dan Gillmor's e-journal entry February 29, 2004
