The Last Temptation of Christ: The Protests and the Effects on Censorship

Censorship seems easy enough to define and yet arguments remain over what exactly constitutes censorship. For instance, are First Amendment rights being violated by not allowing certain words or images to be broadcast on network television or does this merely constitute common sense measures to protect children's undeveloped minds from being exposed to things they are not yet capable of processing? And if this is just common sense, then why is banning Huckleberry Finn from school libraries censorship? What about movie ratings? Is that censorship?

Censorship is far more complicated than one person refusing to let another read or watch or listen to something. The sad, sorry history of the protests against the movie The Last Temptation of Christ should stand as a shining example of how attempts at censorship almost always result in the opposite of the intended effect in the short run, though in the long run the intentions of those who desired to suppress the expression of free speech ultimately were realized.

Those speaking out the loudest for suppression of The Last Temptation of Christ were, unsurprisingly, those who had not seen it and for whom the film represented a threat not just to their religious beliefs, but also to their pocketbooks. Jerry Falwell's interpretation of free speech was made clear when he said, before having viewed the movie, that "Neither the label 'fiction' nor the First Amendment gives Universal the right to libel, slander and ridicule the most central figure in world history." Of course, the label fiction actually is pretty much carte blanche to say whatever you want about whomever you want, but those who were protesting against the film apparently never distilled that information. At no point was The Last Temptation of Christ ever presented as an alternative truth to the gospels, i.e., it was never connected to any heretical gospel, but instead was clearly described as having been based on a novel.

The rise of fictional representations of truth gave Plato pause enough to consider warranting them unfit for a citizens of a republic because the general populace might get confused as to the difference between reality and imitation. By the late 20th century one would have thought audiences would be sophisticated enough to tell the difference. Apparently, a great many people did not share this view and took it upon themselves to do what Plato suggested: censor representations of reality from the republic known as the United States of America. Jerry Falwell seemed to be echoing Plato when Plato suggests that "hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State" with the caveat, of course, that Falwell would demand that the word gods be replaced with the singular, monotheistic and capitalized God.

Platonic thought on the value of the arts to inform and educate still permeate the media even today and has been a driving force behind determining the value of art for thousands of years. One could make a case that the Platonic view of the dangers of mimesis has played a great role in determining the censorship of fiction. After all, it is much easier to censor something with no redeeming value than something that does have an educational content. On the other hand, those who censor are also quicker to jump into the fray when a work of art contains educational content at odds with the values of the would-be censors. That this is so can be proved using The Last Temptation of Christ affair.

In the first place, Jerry Falwell and others were inspired in their desire for censorship regarding The Last Temptation of Christ not because it was a bad movie; they had no way of knowing that or not, since they had not actually seen it. What frightened Falwell was the threat it posed to his religion and all aspects connected to his religion. If the supposedly slanderous and libelous view of Jesus were taken as gospel, perhaps it would be damaging to Christianity's ongoing attempt to bring everyone else in the world into the fold. Add to the protest the fact that Blockbuster Video has refused to carry the film ever since it was first released on video. Because it is bad filmmaking? Apparently not, since Blockbuster currently carries the film in its online library. Now why would Blockbuster censor the film from its brick and mortar stores, but agree to carry it online if they felt it was immoral and sacrilegious? The answer, of course, is that they wouldn't. The reason Blockbuster stores aren't allowed to carry The Last Temptation of Christ is because they were afraid of consumer boycotts and violence. (That Christians would commit violent acts in the name of removing a movie they felt besmirched the name of Jesus is a subject for an entirely different article, of course.) So in this case censorship wasn't based on ethical grounds, but on commercial interest. Well, actually, most cases of censorship are based on commercial interest.

Lest one think that Blockbuster is flogging a dead horse in its continuing refusal to ban a movie released in 1988, consider that in September of 2000 in Catskill, N.Y., "six churches circulated a petition to keep the public library from showing the Martin Scorsese movie The Last Temptation of Christ as part of its banned-books week observance." One wonders if those protestors fully grasped the irony of this particular situation, especially in light of the greater irony that the original protests only served to draw more people to the movie.

The short term consequence of the protests against The Last Temptation of Christ were not what the protestors had intended; in fact, the effect was quite the opposite. A film based on a little-known novel about the life of Jesus directed by a critical darling who had never enjoyed a blockbuster commercial success hardly seemed headed toward the top of the gross list. An argument could certainly be made that had there been no protest, the film would have opened and quietly closed within a few weeks. Instead, of course, the film became a Hollywood legend and, what's more, became a commercial success, posting a profit beyond anyone's wildest expectations. To that extent, the gross miscalculation by those attempting to enforce their worldview through censorship turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes ever made by the Religious Right in America.

Unfortunately, the long term effects of the boycott was successful and infinitely more damaging. As hinted at earlier, not all censorship takes the form of a single individual making a decision. Sometimes censorship happens in a manner that has been falsely labeled "self-censorship." What is termed self-censorship is in actuality imposed by outside forces; the difference being that those forces are an unidentifiable mass rather than a single person. Following the boycott and protests against The Last Temptation of Christ, no Hollywood movie studio has seriously considered making a film that challenges the gospel story of Jesus. Although no real censorship of the movie itself took place, except in regard to Blockbuster's refusal to carry it, the effect has been a very real and a very dangerous censorship on ideas. The censorship of the creative process is even more damaging than the censorship of an already existing product. While it is a horrible thing to no longer have access to a book or song or movie, it is even more horrible to know that writers and directors and producers refuse out of hand to entertain even the possibility of producing a work of art.

It took over fifteen years from the time of the controversy surrounding The Last Temptation of Christ until the next major Hollywood theatrical film dealing with Jesus was made. And even though that film made no controversial challenges to the gospels-in fact, it was sold as being based upon the gospels-no studio would finance it. The Passion of the Christ is perhaps overly earnest in its "praise of a famous man" and, despite being arguably less family-friendly than The Last Temptation of Christ due to its unending violence, is found on Blockbuster shelves. The fact that this film made much, much more money than the earlier film also suggests that the so-called self-censorship that has made a truly imaginative film about Christ inviolate will be carried forth at least another fifteen years. The true tragedy that sprang forth from the situation surrounding Last Temptation of Christ hasn't proven to be the death of that movie as was called for by those who opposed it, but rather the death of ideas. Because films cost so much and because so much is rising on the gamble that a film will make a profit, it's far easier to not roll the dice on certain topics than it is to play the game.

The series of events surrounding the release of the film The Last Temptation of Christ stands as a testament, indeed, to the multifaceted effects of how censorship works in a society in which every decision ultimately comes down to the question of money. It is perhaps less cynical now than it was fifteen years ago to suggest that perhaps the reason all those religious leaders were so frightened by the film had less to do with their religious beliefs than with increasing church membership and tithes. One way in which Christianity and capitalism are similar-perhaps the only way-is that they both need new blood to keep them going. Any challenge to that provokes fear and fear, as Master Yoda makes clear, leads to anger. Days before its release, Bill Bright of the Campus Crusade for Christ made a surprising offer to the head of the company which had produced Last Temptation. He offered to "raise money to reimburse Universal for all copies of the film, which would promptly be destroyed." Bright was not taken up on his offer, but in the end he made a much better deal. At no apparent cost to him, Bright's extremist legions succeeded in instilling such fear that Hollywood agreed to censor itself from making any movies which run counter to the Religious Right's own singular view of the story of Christ for almost twenty years now.