Catholic Corpus Christi Protesters Beware: Any Publicity Is Good Publicity

Catholic Corpus Christi Protesters Beware: Any Publicity Is Good Publicity

By Keith Bowers Tue., Apr. 17 2012 at 12:00 PM

Mikki Willis

James Brandon as Joshua in Corpus Christi

Back in 1985, Jean-Luc Godard released a movie called Hail Mary that made Catholics breathe fire. (Paradoxical metaphor noted.) It was a modern-day retelling of the immaculate conception where a woman named Marie gets pregnant even though she is a virgin. But it was also a French experimental film, so Marie has a number of unholy attributes, including a rather foul mouth. She uses words such as "cunt" referring to her own anatomy, and she appears wholly (not holy) unclothed. (Oh, the blasphemy!) I saw Hail Mary at the Roxie in 1985. Why? Because the Catholics were out in force trying to steer people away from it. Would I have seen it otherwise? Not a chance. Did I like it? Not really (hey, I was 18), but I liked seeing it because I got to cross a picket line of religious zealots and tell them just where they could stick their thought-policing.

The Catholics protesting a documentary called Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption could take a lesson from this: They risk sending more people to see the film by making noise about it, especially in San Francisco, a city that contains Catholics who are openly queer and don't feel one bit guilty about it. (Now there's a stand-off we'd love to see: red-state Catholics vs. San Francisco out-and-proud Catholics.)

At the center of the protest is a play, Corpus Christi, that's the subject of the film. The play depicts Jesus as a gay man living in modern-day Texas. (We haven't seen it yet, but we can guess what happens to him.) The documentary, scheduled to play at the Castro Theatre April 29, is about the play, the cast, and how cast members dealt with the truckloads of protest they got while touring the United States. (Spoiler alert: Some of them find their spiritual beliefs are strengthened by the experience.)

Erika Maldonado tells you all about it on our sister blog, The Snitch. Look for more on this film in our Night+Day section and our online calendar.

Oh, here's one more funny thing: The website Hoax-Slayer in 2010 wrote that there will be no such film called Corpus Christi that depicts Jesus as a gay man in Texas.

"No such movie is about to be released or is in production," Hoax-Slayer writes.

Someone needs to update that.

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Tags:

Catholocism, controversy, Corpus Christi, LGBT, protest, queer, religion

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supertramp

You seem to be critical of those Catholics who are angry about plays such as Corpus Christi. In my opinion, you could not be a true Catholic and not get angry about such plays. You seem to take the reaction to these plays very lightly even sarcastically, but to Catholics, Jesus is God and Mary is his mother so if anyone wants to degrade them of course there will be an uproar. If this were Muhammad who was being betrayed as a homosexual, you can be sure that peaceful protests would not be a issue but rather the entire theater would be blown up or burnt to the ground with everyone in it. However Christians, especially Catholics make a much better target, and the Scum who come up with these disgusting plays would be much too cowardly to challenge the Muslim faith in such a way. I don't have a problem with the gay community, what I do have a problem with is how they try and push there beliefs and lifestyle down everyone's throat. How they have such a control over Hollywood and the music industry. These so called "plays" are a good example of this, and how they have gone too far. Sickening.