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December 17, 2005 5:21 PM   Subscribe

The Passion of the Benny Hill. What if Benny Hill had made Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ?
(Probably NSFW, though not for the usual Benny Hill reasons)
posted by Aknaton (39 comments total)
 
You can get a direct download at the first link.
In which case, of course, you'll go to Hell.
posted by Aknaton at 5:21 PM on December 17, 2005


it is clearly a product of the secular, Jewish, relativistic War On Easter.

it really made me laugh, though. thanks for the post.
posted by matteo at 5:26 PM on December 17, 2005


I dunno. I'm usually first in line to heckle me some Christians, but this one kinda made me feel bad. It might be having Jesus foisted upon me at a really young age and the fact that my deep structures still havent shaken that guilt off, but Yakety Sax and The Messiah just don't mix well.
posted by quite unimportant at 5:34 PM on December 17, 2005


Here's pretty much the same scenes, but this time set to the music of another famous Hill.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:35 PM on December 17, 2005


It was better when SNL did it.
posted by meehawl at 5:40 PM on December 17, 2005


hahaha, that Jesus guy is a slapstick GENIUS!
posted by newfers at 5:45 PM on December 17, 2005


That woman in black? She's not a regular with Hill's Angels, right?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:54 PM on December 17, 2005


It's in pretty poor taste.

Well, actually, the music isn't so bad... And the editing...

I guess, really, it's just the images that are in poor taste.
posted by crunchland at 6:57 PM on December 17, 2005


hahaha, that Jesus guy is a slapstick GENIUS!
He changes the way we think about getting crucified!
posted by lathrop at 7:02 PM on December 17, 2005


In poor taste? Most definitely -- which is typically a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

But oh man, now I understand what all the people who referred to The Passion as a snuff film were talking about. I'm thankful to have missed out on its run at the local cinema.

Or, more succinctly, what crunchland said.
posted by Opposite George at 7:30 PM on December 17, 2005


I dunno. I'm usually first in line to heckle me some Christians, but this one kinda made me feel bad. It might be having Jesus foisted upon me at a really young age and the fact that my deep structures still havent shaken that guilt off, but Yakety Sax and The Messiah just don't mix well.

It's really just that you're a pussy. Because it was pretty funny.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:05 PM on December 17, 2005


A man's execution is grotesque : to worship a man's execution is unthinkable savagery.

God help us.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 8:41 PM on December 17, 2005


to worship a man's execution is unthinkable savagery.

Now, now, the worship is of the resurrection, not the execution. Which gets more play, Good Friday or Easter?

That said, the same friend who showed me this once introduced me to the following question: what Christians would do instead of crossing themselves if Christ had been, say, beheaded? or stoned to death? strung up, drowned, etc. Bears thinking about.
posted by Aknaton at 9:08 PM on December 17, 2005


What are the bears thinking about?
posted by shmegegge at 9:41 PM on December 17, 2005


What doesn't go with Benny Hill music? Holocaust footage, the JFK assassination, the Twin Towers falling...it's all good.
posted by fungible at 9:44 PM on December 17, 2005


Unfortunately, fungible has a damn good point there. I'm visualizing the towers bounce up and down in time to the music even now.
posted by yhbc at 9:47 PM on December 17, 2005


Now, now, the worship is of the resurrection, not the execution.

An empty cross might be construed as worship of "the resurrection," but a corpse on a cross is an execution.

What doesn't go with Benny Hill music?

All of history is a chase across time. A chase after, and then from, pasty, fleshy women in bikinis and high heels.
posted by pracowity at 12:00 AM on December 18, 2005


I think I hurt my lungs a little bit.
posted by CynicalKnight at 12:13 AM on December 18, 2005


Interesting juxtaposition.

I didn't find it funny, personally. In a strange way, the music added a new kind of pathos to the graphic death. As in, "how many people still view this as a laughable, frivolous topic?"

This seemed to be emphasized when the music stopped near the end, and we are left with Mary and Jesus in the classic pieta tableau in total silence. Mary's eyes then become accusing in their pain.

Interesting.
posted by darkstar at 2:25 AM on December 18, 2005


Apt, in good faith, apt. One of the crappest, most disgraceful things about this movie, was Mel Gibson's insistence on having the Roman soldiers laughing hysterically when they flogged Jesus for the first time. The Bible says nothing about this. I doubt your average rank-and-file soldier would find this routine practice amusing in the least.
posted by Tarn at 3:53 AM on December 18, 2005


I hate Benny Hill and I hate Christianity, but by hell I loved that. This just goes to show that sometimes two wrongs DO make a right. Probably.
posted by Decani at 7:56 AM on December 18, 2005


yhbc : Unfortunately, fungible has a damn good point there. I'm visualizing the towers bounce up and down in time to the music even now

Oh, man, that's terrible, but that's funny as hell, too in an "I'm-giggling-hysterically-while-thinking-how-awful-it-is-that-I'm-giggling" kinda way. Talk about recontextualization.
posted by kcds at 8:01 AM on December 18, 2005


All of history is a chase across time. A chase after, and then from, pasty, fleshy women in bikinis and high heels.

Ah, if only that were true. That only happens on Saturdays round my way.
posted by Decani at 8:01 AM on December 18, 2005


That was dumb. Not because it was offensive, it was just dumb.

The key to the Benny Hill theme is the chase. If Jesus had been chased around a bit THEN tortured, it might have been a bit more apt.

This stinks of yet another "HAW HAW CHRISTIANS IS DUMB LOOK I AM OFFENSIVE" meme, the likes of which have been done to death (and better).
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:31 AM on December 18, 2005


Why, mockery of Gibson's The Passion now equals being disrespectful towards Christianity? Isn't that a little ironic?
posted by funambulist at 9:12 AM on December 18, 2005


tragedy + time = comedy

tragedy + yakety sax = comedy
posted by furtive at 10:29 AM on December 18, 2005


Tarn: "... I doubt your average rank-and-file soldier would find this routine practice amusing in the least."

The same could've been said, perhaps, about people like Lyndee England and her masochistic cohorts? I'm not saying they did or didn't, but I wouldn't doubt that perhaps it happened (and not just in Jesus' case, but in many cases...)
posted by symbioid at 11:05 AM on December 18, 2005


symbioid
The difference here is that the reason England's actions were so shocking is because they were so unusual. Torture and humiliation is not something that is supposed to happen at all in modern armies, but in Roman times, beatings like that were just the law of the day. Tarn is right, a Roman solider of the day would probably have performed any number of beatings like that over the years. It would have just been another part of his job keeping and enforcing the law. Is it possible that they enjoyed it? Of course, but it seems more likely that it was just Gibson's making the event far more dramatic than it probably was.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:48 AM on December 18, 2005


The difference here is that the reason England's actions were so shocking is because they were so unusual. Torture and humiliation is not something that is supposed to happen at all in modern armies

Oh, I'm sure you're right.
posted by Decani at 12:25 PM on December 18, 2005


Wow, Benny Hill was really thin when he was young.
posted by The Monkey at 2:39 PM on December 18, 2005


This was terrible, as said, no chase, no girls, not funny, execution as bad as could be.
posted by uni verse at 3:14 PM on December 18, 2005


What doesn't go with Benny Hill music? Holocaust footage, the JFK assassination, the Twin Towers falling...it's all good.
posted by fungible


Apt username. Anyway, no, I really don't see the analogy. Nor do I really see that Christians, as a group, are being mocked by the makers of this video. Rather, it is those (in particular Mel Gibson) who fetishize the suffering of Christ that are being ridiculed.
posted by Aknaton at 4:09 PM on December 18, 2005


excelent!
posted by Balisong at 5:38 PM on December 18, 2005


Aknaton, you really don't see this as making fun of the suffering of Christ? Nor of mocking Christians who hold Christ to be at the center of their religion? Seriously?

I mean, it seems you have to kind of torture the concept a bit to get away from that pretty obvious result. It's video footage of a movie depicting the beating and execution of Jesus Christ. It's turned into a burlesque. How is that not making fun of Christians, nor making light of the death of Jesus Christ, again?

I'm all for teh funny, but let's be real, ya know?

Speaking of teh funny:

This was terrible, as said, no chase, no girls, not funny, execution as bad as could be.

posted by uni verse



Now THAT's funny! :)
posted by darkstar at 9:15 PM on December 18, 2005


Aknaton, you really don't see this as making fun of the suffering of Christ? Nor of mocking Christians who hold Christ to be at the center of their religion? Seriously?

First, yes I'm serious, I'm not trolling here.
Second, no, the person I see reveling in the suffering of Christ is Mel Gibson. To the extent that the people who made this little film did so to make a statement, I think they're making fun of Gibson's "snuff" film, rather than of Christ's suffering itself.
Third, it's one thing to hold the man who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, was the Son of God, and who performed miracles such as coming back from the dead, as the center of your religion. It's a different thing to worship him for having suffered. My understanding is that different Christians value this last aspect of the Christ mythos differently, and only those (such as Gibson) who focus on that to the relative exclusion of other aspects are being mocked here.

I don't ask that you agree with my assessment, but I do hope I'm expressing myself well enough that you see the distinction I'm trying to draw here.
posted by Aknaton at 10:48 PM on December 18, 2005


I think I do, and I appreciate the distinction and that you are sincere. Though, I think it's functionally an extremely fine distinction you're making.

That is, it may be a genuine distinction, but it strikes me as one which most observers (Christian and non-Christian), even pretty laid-back ones such as myself, wouldn't appreciate unless you spelled it out to them.

The generalized humor of the burlesque, in my opinion, probably does not derive from juxtaposing Yakkety Sax in any overt way with Mel Gibson's fetishism, per se, but with a depiction of Jesus Christ's beating and execution. I think that might be what people find so funny about it (though there are surely exeptions). Indeed, it's that sense of irony that makes the burlesque so laughable.

And while there are surely Christians who nearly fetishize the suffering of Christ "to the relative exclusion of other aspects", this kind of burlesque casts a pretty broad net, one which catches those folks as well as mainstreamers who may not be so inclined, but nevertheless have deep feelings of sadness about JC's suffering.

I mean, it wasn't just S&M, B&D fetishists that resonated with and wept at Gibson's movie and who made it one of the highest grossing films of all time. Er, in both senses of the word.

Just so it's clear, I'm not knocking the post at all. It'snot my cup of tea, generally. And while I didn't find it funny, I did find it interesting. Just observing that most folks, I don't think, would immediately see it as a dig at Mel Gibson. :)
posted by darkstar at 3:13 AM on December 19, 2005


the zapruder film set to benny hill music.

heh.
posted by telstar at 6:40 AM on December 19, 2005


Heheh...yes, the ironic juxtaposition of Benny Hill with Zapruder's particular home-movie cinematographic style would be funny.

;)
posted by darkstar at 3:02 AM on December 20, 2005


And here I completely disagree. Zapruder, 9/11, decapitation videos, imagining these real things set to that music really turns my stomach. I think I'd feel the same way about (presumably nonexistent!) actual video of Christ's execution.
posted by Aknaton at 6:50 AM on December 20, 2005


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