Reverend Flenky, a self-described witnessing evangelist, sees himself as a practicing Christian. I'm spreading the Good Word, he claims. The Word of God. There is redemption for all sinners. The fact that we depict the sins adds to the flavor of the message. In the same way that the anti-abortionist forces display photographs of aborted fetuses, we show the actual carnal acts of the offending sinners. Why not? We display the redemptions, too.
The debauchery goes on for nearly an hour, as Felipe Marlowe, the prodigiously endowed actor who portrays Jesus, copulates with Mary [Magdalene], played by Anita Storm, in dozens of convoluted positions straight out of the Kama Sutra. The films denouement comes three minutes before its end, as Jesus hears the voice of Jehovah commanding Him to fulfill His destiny, then leaves sexuality behind as He goes to Golgotha. The final scene features Jesus on the cross, a weeping Mary Magdalene at its base. Was it good for you, baby? she asks in a quavering voice, tears running down her cheeks. The earth moved, Jesus answers, a smile on His bearded, bloody face.
And what message would that be? That there is an animal, primitive aspect to our Christian faith that needs to be recognized, perhaps emphasized, in order to more fully appreciate the state of grace that is possible when we give ourselves over to the will of God, asserts Monesto.
I wonder who actually buys this stuff. Hipsters with apartments full of ironically-acquired Mexican religious statuettes and the like? Black-clad satanists/nihilists who are into all things sacrilegious? Actual Christian hypocrites who convince themselves that they're taking a hard line against the sins of the flesh by sitting through the token "redemption" parts of the films? Or is there some memetic cross between Californian touchy-feely hot-tub spirituality and born-again Christianity with whose adherents these films strike a chord?
Posted by: toby | http:// | Fri Mar 5 01:28:42 2004
Snuff film? Oh my God! They killed James Caviezel!
(Sorry. Don't think it's actually a snuff film if nobody dies for real.)
Oh, and Owen, was that *really* necessary?
Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Fri Mar 5 02:04:35 2004
I thought it could be a spoof; then again, I'm sure there'd be some kind of market for that kind of thing (if only from the sacrilegious-freak demographic), and surely some pornographer somewhere would have thought to tap into it, so those films could well exist.
Posted by: gjw | http://the-fix.org | Fri Mar 5 05:29:53 2004
Plenty of nun-porn out there. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Fri Mar 5 08:03:47 2004
It's all about the Catholics.
Posted by: - | - | Thu Mar 11 13:06:48 2004
What the!?
Posted by: Owen | http://addedentry.livejournal.com/ | Tue Mar 16 21:20:09 2004
To atone for my previous missing the point, here's a story about a p0rn director working with the Church:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apfeature_story.asp?category=1120&slug=Porn%20Public%20Service
Want to say something? Do so here.
Note to spammers: This comment system applies the rel=nofollow attribute to the poster's URL and all links. Posting links to this page will not improve their search engine rankings.
Please keep comments on topic and to the point. Inappropriate comments may be deleted.
Note that markup is stripped from comments; URLs will be automatically converted into links.
Posted by: Owen | http://addedentry.livejournal.com/ | Thu Mar 4 19:33:38 2004
This smells of spoof.