Hollywood Babylon: the recent Academy Award celebration of last year's movie fare has made transparently obvious the huge chasm between the cultural elitists and Middle America.

The year 2004 is certain to go down as a defining point in the decades-long war for the heart, mind, and soul of America. The cultural elites who reign over the fields of entertainment, the arts, the news media, and academia are triumphantly celebrating our descent into a post-Christian, neopagan society. They are celebrating an ongoing revolution that threatens to transform a culture of life, light, virtue, and hope into a culture of death, darkness, degeneracy, and despair.

This celebration of our moral decline was nowhere more blatantly displayed than at the 77th Academy Awards on February 27. Considered by many to be the premier annual cultural event, broadcast to a global audience of hundreds of millions, the Oscars have been sliding down a slippery slope for many years. But this year's nominees for the coveted golden statue comprised, in the words of USA Today, an especially "bleak slate."

In a February 25 cover story entitled, "Exploring Oscar's Dark Side," USA Today described the grim reality behind this year's glamour and glitz:

   Open the winning envelope? For this
   year's Oscar hopefuls, it's more like
   opening a vein.

      Drug addiction, mercy killing,
   mental illness, genocide, abortion, ill
   young mothers and borderline alcoholism
   --these are a few of Oscar's
   favorite things this year.

Here are a few more of Oscar's favorite things, as deduced from the Academy's nominees: homosexuality, pederasty, adultery, pornography, nudity, incest, blasphemy, profanity, and Communist revolutionaries.

The effete elite who dominate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apparently went out of their way to select Oscar nominees that are especially offensive to the vast majority of the American public. Middle America, in some measure, still adheres to the Christian faith and morality that are so abhorrent to the atheist and hedonist sensibilities of Hollywood.

The Academy went out of its way to snub Mel Gibson's epic picture (and box office blockbuster), The Passion of The Christ, in order to lay accolades on:

* Million Dollar Baby, a Clint Eastwood boxing flick that promotes mercy killing.

* Vera Drake, a kindly British cleaning woman who "helps young women" by killing their children through abortion.

* The Aviator, Martin Scorsese's sprawling homage to mad aviation genius and movie industry titan Howard Hughes.

* Sideways, a boozy comedy about neurotic wine critics sipping their way through the wineries of California's Santa Ynez Valley.

* Ray, a loving tribute, warts and all, to blind jazz legend Ray Charles.

* Finding Neverland, a fond celluloid eulogy to J.M. Barrie, creator of the beloved children's classic Peter Pan.

Without weighing in on the artistic merits (or lack thereof) of the above-listed contenders for best picture or best director, it is worth noting that none of them even came close to achieving major box office success. By Oscar time none of them had hit the $100 million benchmark in domestic ticket sales usually expected of top-drawer films, and none had developed a huge following outside of the critics' circle. Media reports acknowledged that the Oscars might even have trouble finding an audience because of the weak selection. "What if Hollywood holds an awards show and America doesn't show up?" asked the New York Times two days before the Oscar spectacle was scheduled to run. The Times article noted that viewer-ship for the Golden Globes plunged by nearly 40 percent this year and the Grammys, held two weeks prior to the Oscars, had also suffered dismal ratings.

The Times headline summed up the situation as, "Hollywood Catches Case of Oscar Blahs." But Tinseltown's blahs are self-inflicted, and could have been remedied easily, if the counter-culture revolutionaries who run the entertainment industry were not so immovably, virulently antagonistic to Christianity.

What Happened to The Passion?.

The top story of 2004 in the culture war was (and remains) Mel Gibson's epic picture, The Passion of the Christ, and the phenomenal worldwide reactions to it--both positive and negative. Gibson's proposal to make a grippingly realistic and reverent film about the final hours in the life of Jesus Christ, including His brutal scourging and crucifixion, was rejected out of hand by every studio. The powers that be in Movieland have no problem with films that depict Jesus and Christianity as long as they denigrate and defame, rather than honor and edify. Recall to mind The Last Temptation of Christ, Priest, Agnes of God, Hail Mary, Stigmata, Dogma, and other sacrilegious offerings that Hollywood has inflicted on the American public.

Gibson, one of Hollywood's biggest stars (and a previous Oscar winner, in 1995, for Braveheart), was undeterred. In a daring move that shocked the film industry, "Mad Mel" put up $30 million of his own money and produced the movie independently. The "experts" predicted that The Passion would be a financial debacle for Gibson, if not a complete career killer. While still in the filming process, Gibson and The Passion were subjected to a non-stop campaign of malicious attacks, principally involving totally unfounded charges that the film is anti-Semitic.

Again, the "experts" predicted that the controversy would kill distribution of the film, that no theater chains would show it. Despite the incredible obstacles thrown in his path, every step of the way, Gibson produced a profoundly moving and artistically stunning movie that has taken the world by storm. The Passion set box office records and completely reinvented the movie marketing business. Gibson's Hollywood and media critics were thunderstruck as The Passion defied their predictions, staying at the top of the charts week after week. Far from being the commercial flop they had forecast, The Passion has become one of the top movie blockbusters of all time, taking in more than $370 million in domestic receipts, and over $600 million worldwide.

The Passion of The Christ is the one film of 2004 that had Oscar written all over it. None of the year's other smash hits could claim the big movie, "epic" stature Hollywood usually looks for in Oscar contenders. Several other movies did boffo box office business--Spider-Man 2, Shark Tale, The Incredibles, and Shrek 2--but they are kid fare, not serious Oscar contenders.

The Passion had it all: sumptuous cinematography, outstanding acting performances, inspired directing, compelling storytelling, dramatic material, historical setting and costumes, meticulous detail, stirring musical score, incredible special effects--and a powerful spiritual message. It was that last ingredient that drew the record throngs to the theaters--and that caused the self-anointed commissars of American culture to turn on The Passion with a vengeance.

The Passion was not merely passed over in the final vote, it was virtually shut out of the Oscars from the very beginning, in what was very clearly intended as an official smackdown of a star who had dared to break contemporary Hollywood's unwritten taboo: Thou shalt not promote Christianity.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an Orthodox Jew who courageously defended Gibson and The Passion against the vicious and unjustified charges of anti-Semitism, said last year that James Caviezel must at least be nominated for a "Best Actor" Oscar for his exceptional performance as Jesus. "If not," declared Rabbi Lapin, "[Hollywood] will leave itself open to charges of antireligious prejudice."

Well, not only did the Tinseltown commissars prove their bias by denying Mr. Caviezel's stellar performance an Oscar nomination, they proved it repeatedly by refusing even to nominate The Passion for any of the major categories (although it was nominated for three minor Oscars). The same blatant bias held true for Hollywood's other awards events. The Golden Globe Awards, the Directors Guild Awards, the Producers Guild Awards--all blackballed Gibson and The Passion. It would have been suspicious enough had The Passion come up completely empty-handed from all the awards events after being nominated. However, The Passion was not even nominated for any major Oscar category in a year when it is clearly the outstanding pick in what industry insiders acknowledge to be an otherwise mediocre lineup. No, the neo-pagan elite of Hollywood are sending an unmistakable message: Jesus Christ is not welcome here--and neither are any of His true believers.

Hollywood Hypocrisy

Even Chris Rock, the foul-mouthed comedian who hosted the televised Oscar soiree, could not resist noting the transparent hypocrisy surrounding the "controversy" over the Gibson film. "Another movie nobody wanted to make was a big religious movie, Passion of The Christ," Rock noted in his monologue. "Come on, they made six Police Academies and they can't make one Passion of The Christ?! They had no trouble making Hellboy!" Of course not. No matter how vile or perverse, Hollywood will gladly spread it across the silver screen. It's the stuff that comes from the heavenly direction that they find so offensive. Case in point: Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed The Last Temptation of Christ, Hollywood's abominable counterpoint to Gibson's reverent The Passion of The Christ.

Based on a novel by Greek Communist Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation is a blasphemous and pornographic big-screen attack on the divinity and the gospel message of Jesus Christ. The film presents Jesus as a weak, confused, vacillating revolutionary devoid of true purpose, and preoccupied with lusts of the flesh. He is depicted as a collaborator with Roman occupiers, building crosses to crucify His brethren. So, in this cinematic portrayal, Jesus deserves His own crucifixion, in the end. He confesses to being a liar and to being possessed by the devil. The real hero of the film is Judas, the loyal friend who helps Jesus realize that it is Satan who has deluded Him into thinking that He is the Messiah.

Millions of Christians worldwide were justifiably outraged when news of the film came out in 1988. Multiple attempts were launched to convince Universal Pictures to drop the salacious, sacrilegious project--to no avail. In fact, Universal and its allies in Hollywood and Big Media responded with an in-your-face, all-out embrace of Temptation, scoffing at the offended sensibilities of Christians. The movie was hyped as an artistic masterpiece and Scorsese, an apostate Christian, was nominated for an Oscar as Best Director in 1989.

Here's a sampling of the reviews by the elite media at the time:

* "The Last Temptation of Christ ... exerts enormous power. What emerges most memorably is its sense of absolute conviction."--Janet Maslin, New York Times

* "A magnificent movie. A richly beautiful, great work of movie art."--Michael Healy, Los Angeles Daily News

* "Brilliant, thrilling and profoundly spiritual."--Dennis Cunningham, CBS-TV

* "10. Highest rating. A masterpiece.... A great film." --Kathy Huffhines, Detroit Free Press

* "One of the very finest, most accessible religious films ever made."--Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

Contrast those bouquets for Scorsese and Temptation with the critical vitriol thrown at Gibson and The Passion. Even more striking than the lockout of The Passion from all the Hollywood awards programs was the near universal ostracism of Gibson's film from the year-end "10 best films" lists that are a standard feature of almost every newspaper and news organization. Talk about censorship and lock-step conformity! Where's the diversity these elites claim to champion? It's absurd to try to account for this glaring industry-wide exclusion as anything short of a conscious effort both to punish Gibson and to send a clear message to the rest of the artistic community about the acceptable bounds of artistic expression.

Icons of Tinseltown

The nomination of Martin Scorsese's The Aviator for 11 Academy Awards, and the all-out campaign by his many admirers in the media to bestow the Best Director crown on "Marty," should be seen as being as much a reward for a lifetime of service to Hollywood's anti-Christian campaign (especially including his Last Temptation) as for any artistic merits of The Aviator.

Scorsese has been an icon of Tinseltown and the media elites for decades. He is a striking contrast to Mel Gibson, in all the areas that count most in their book. First and foremost, he is a Catholic who has renounced his faith for Hollywood's gospel of hedonism. In a recent admiring article on, and interview with, Scorsese, The Sunday Times of London noted that "his Catholicism was always of the Graham Greene variety--sinfulness followed by guilt--which he calls 'living in the twilight zone.' There he has resided since discovering the pleasures of the flesh at New York University." Gibson, on the other hand, despite some falls from grace, is well known as a devout traditional Catholic.

During his interview with the Sunday Times, the paper reported, Scorsese launched a scathing attack on the supposed censorship of the Christian right and "warns that we are about to witness a second McCarthyism." This same "Christian right" that Scorsese condemns is the very audience who so passionately embraced Gibson's The Passion.

According to the Sunday Times, the 64-year-old director has now settled down with his fifth wife, which "is quite a change from the 1970s when he changed partners the way other folk change buses." But that puts him in good company with the Hollywood set. It is Gibson who falls outside Babylon's nihilistic "standard": he's stayed married to his first wife and has seven children.

The same folks who failed to stop The Passion with their false charges of anti-Semitism and the even more transparently disingenuous charges that it was too gory, simply adore Scorsese's famously bloody and violent film style that has inspired a whole generation of film makers to new heights of movie-making mayhem.

The Sunday Times piece quoted above also observed: "You don't need to brandish a Bible to recoil from Hollywood's enduring fascination with violence--and, sorry to report, the man who popularised cinematic slaughter was Scorsese: without him there would have been no Quentin Tarantino." Mr. Tarantino, for those unfamiliar with his film ouevre, is the reigning king of carnage; his Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2 set new standards of slicing and dicing, slashing and smashing.

Scorsese's main competition for the Oscar this time around came from another Hollywood icon, Clint Eastwood. "Both have taken the depiction of big-screen violence to new graphic heights," noted USA Today. "Eastwood's brand is point-blank and mockingly cruel in his spaghetti Westerns and Dirty Harry outings. Scorsese's style is operatic and shockingly savage in Taxi Driver and Gangs of New York.

"So what do his movies show us?" the Sunday Times asks concerning Scorsese. "It is all about depicting human suffering," Scorsese answers. Isn't that precisely what Gibson depicted so powerfully in The Passion? Ah yes, but that was suffering with a sacrificial, redemptive purpose. That was suffering that showed the love and mercy of God.

To be acceptable to the intellectual/cultural elites, violence and suffering must be pointless, nihilistic--or, if it must have a point, it must be to serve some humanistic left-wing cause.

And that is probably why Scorsese's big, lavish production, The Aviator, was passed up this year in favor of Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood's more intimate movie that powerfully depicts human suffering to advance the cause of assisted suicide. In Million Dollar Baby, Hilary Swank delivers an admittedly brilliant performance (which won her an Oscar for Best Actress) as a female boxer who suffers a paralyzing neck injury. Eastwood plays her gritty trainer, Frankie, who finally becomes her Dr. Kevorkian--once (Eastwood would have us believe) compassion conquers nasty old Church dogma.

It's important to note that pain isn't even the issue in this case. Swank's character is not suffering any physical pain, she simply doesn't want to continue living in a state of paralysis. Not after having been a champion, after having been "in all the magazines" and after having heard crowds "chanting my name." Admittedly, life as a quadriplegic is not a condition that any of us would choose; in fact, we would not wish that adversity on our worst enemy. However, millions of people have suffered that fate, temporarily or permanently, and have shown that, in spite of the suffering, life can be worth living.

As her friend, surrogate father, and coach, Eastwood's character could have and should have counseled the young athlete against suicide and attempted to inspire her to strive for the ultimate championship: heroically offering her suffering to God; making the most of her physical abilities during her brief, mortal life on Earth; and preparing for the eternal life to come. He could have and should have prayed with her and sought to strengthen her faith. Instead, Frankie consults his parish priest, who is about as warm and sympathetic as a cold, dead fish. The priest, who fits the usual Hollywood stereotype of men of the cloth as rigid dogmatists, is first introduced to the audience as a calloused, short-tempered pastor who hurls a vulgar expletive at Frankie and tells him to stop coming to church. We last see the padre coldly telling Frankie that if he goes through with Swank's request to turn off her ventilator, he will go to hell. The priest does not offer to go see Swank himself, nor is there any evidence in the film that he does this most basic of pastoral duties.

In the final scenes of the movie, Eastwood disconnects Swank's breathing tube and injects her with a lethal dose of adrenaline. As a culminating irony, the camera close-up of Swank shows she is wearing a gold cross around her neck --brazenly using what for millions of Christian believers is the symbol of life to promote one of the most aggressive campaigns of the culture of death.

Side-by-side with Million Dollar Baby's promotion of euthanasia is Vera Drake's even more open campaign to present abortionists as the truly compassionate saints who provide loving care to unfortunate women oppressed by Christian society. Naturally, this blatantly pro-abortion theme played well with the Hollywood left, and Vera Drake's studio (Fine Line Features) teamed up with the nation's leading abortion business, Planned Parenthood, to promote the film.

Battle Lines

The hostility of the cultural elites to Christianity and the once-dominant Christian ethos that formed American public and private morality is now so explicit, palpable, and omnipresent that it is ridiculous to pretend otherwise. In music, film, television, theater, literature, and virtually all the fine arts, the intellectual/cultural elites are promoting rampant promiscuity, profanity, pornography, and perversion. Their culture of death is reflected not only in the horrendous death toll our society suffers through abortion and assisted suicide, but in the suffering and deaths caused by the millions of cases of sexually transmitted diseases and the crime and violence that plague our streets, schools, and families.

Like no other episode in entertainment history, the furor over The Passion of The Christ has delineated some of the most important battle lines in the culture war that threatens to destroy completely all that is good and decent in our society. That so popular and influential a mega-star as Mel Gibson could be slapped down in such a public manner is intended to serve as a potent warning to others that even the enormous commercial success of The Passion will not deter the neopagans from their militant crusade to de-Christianize American society. In fact, it has intensified their fervor.

The unexpected popular response to The Passion shocked and terrified the cultural power elite. It has shown them that the reservoirs of resistance to their paganizing efforts are still much larger and deeper than they had imagined. In spite of--or because of--their sledgehammer attacks on the film, it became an unstoppable force. If Gibson were allowed to go unpunished, other Christians in the entertainment industry might be emboldened to do likewise.

The powers that be in Hollywood Babylon are determined to prevent that from happening. Those who hope to preserve our Christian-style civilization must be no less determined.