More on Mary M.

I just watched the second twenty minutes of Mary Magdalene (2018.) I’m breaking it up into short episodes because, frankly, I’m finding it a little troublesome. So far it’s all based on exoteric Christian mythology, when I was hoping for something different because I’ve long thought of Mary as an ambassador for the Divine Feminine – a concept which is largely at odds with exoteric Christianity (yes, I know the Catholics offer a nod in that direction with the ‘Mary, mother of God’ thing, but in practice they studiously support the pre-eminence of masculine superiority at every opportunity.)

So, tonight it was John the Baptist’s turn to hold forth. At least I think he’s John the Baptist because he has a disturbing habit of being a little histrionic and pushing people into the sea as a precursor to winning God’s favour. (And the actors in this film mumble so much that I’m missing a lot of the dialogue.)

But there was one piece of dialogue I did hear clearly. The actor playing John is American, you see, and most American accents close and elongate the ‘o’ phonetic when compared with UK English speech. And so when I heard him – in slightly histrionic fashion – proclaim:

This faith will surely lead you to the Kingdom of Gard…

… he reminded me very much of a Southern Baptist preacher. And since I have some considerable difficulty with the whole concept of faith anyway, I feel a sense of turn-off coming on.

But I will persevere. For a start I’m curious to see what the film makes of the character of Jesus. I’ve long had a suspicion – and I think I’ve said so before on the blog – that what Jesus was actually preaching was completely misunderstood by the Hebrew proletariat, steeped as they were in Judaic conditioning, who were his first followers, and was subsequently turned into an irrational folk tale which has persisted for 2,000 years. I can’t know that, of course, but I’m still interested to see what line the film takes.

Mostly, however, I want to see whether Mary is afforded the gravitas which I think is her due, and which is why bought the damn DVD in the first place.