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In Reply to: RE: He was... it's not even really a question. posted by sjb on November 12, 2009 at 10:59:34
...but I was raised Catholic and went through 12 years of parochial school. I assure you, at Catholic achool in the late 60s, there were undoubtedly stones altar boys (and girls). So the getting high scenes didn't seem outlandish to me - I also thought they were funny and didn't slight the actual relisious ritual itself. The tone while mocking was, I thought, affectionate - much less mocking than the Coens usually are.
I was surprised how much I did emotionally connect with this movie...especially the ending. Perhaps its because I've been through some life altering experinces in the past few years.
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Being Bar Mitzvah'ed is a bit different than being an altar boy. If you've ever read a language that doesn't use English characters, you know it requires concentration. Now imagine reading that language from a holy book in front of a congregation of friends, strangers and family. Each syllable has a unique inflection that must be recited in a specific melody or you change the meaning of the sentence. Finally, this is part of a ritual stretching back thousands of years that symbolizes you taking your place among adults in the community.
If you think you can do this stoned, good luck. And to portray such a ceremony as given to stoners is, again, doing no favors to Judaism. While I could appreciate it as a somewhat nifty cinematic technique by a pair of reclusive filmmakers, I think they could have made a far more powerful statement by avoiding that portrayal.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
...of being in the modern version of the Roman alphabet that we use every day.
Having had a few rudimentary lessons in Hebrew, I can attest that the language/alphabet are daunting for those of us used to speaking/reading/writing in the Western alphabet. ("What do you mean it's not read from left to right?!")
Thank goodness "Confirmation" required no such preparation. Having had couple friends (or their children) Bar Mitzvah'ed/Bat Mitzvah'ed I totally respect the amount of study and preparation it entails. I often wish our non-Jewish western culture had a more meanigful rite of passage into adulthood than high school graduation or getting the keys to one's first car.
Our young hero wasn't a disaster at the cermony, but being high sure didn't help him get through it smoothly.
However, I would also argue that learning the responses to RC mass in Latin (and many of us learned it in plainchant), reading from the Holy Book during service, along with all the ritual accompanying it, impressed with the solemnity and myssticism of the rite, all of which takes place in front of a large congregation of friends, family and strangers also takes concentration and can also be a daunting proposition. (No extended reading in a foreign tongue required, I realize.)
I have great admiration for the Jewish faith and the Bar Mitzvah ritual. This movie didn't demean Judaism for me any more than Life Of Brian or Monty Python's Meaning Of Life crushed out the good things about Christianity/Catholicism - the Coens are equal opportunity satirists when it comes to religion and culture. In my book, religion is legitimate subject to satirize, especially as in this example where the religion itself is not poked fun at so much as it's used to explore character...and that through exaggeration.
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