Why Netflix’s ‘disgusting’ religious epic angers Palestinians and Christians alike

It’s not uncommon for films to stir up controversy upon release, especially when they deal with Bible stories, but the new Netflix feature film “Mary” is drawing criticism from two directions at once, angering both Palestinian supporters and conservative Christians.

The film is a biopic about the eponymous Mary, the mother of Jesus. It spans the arc of her own childhood – she was born to parents Joachim and Anna after a long struggle to conceive and was dedicated to the temple as a young girl – and her impending motherhood, her pregnancy, her journey with Joseph to Bethlehem and their hiding place in front of King Herod’s men as he orders the massacre of the innocents.

Mary is played by Noa Cohen, a 22-year-old Israeli actress and model who is no stranger to controversial films: she was accused of being involved in “whitewashing Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of 120,000 Christians in Artsakh” after she died in 2022 appeared in the “Israeli-Azerbaijani” film Silent Game.

Still, Cohen’s nationality was crucial to her casting as Mary. “It was important to us that Mary and most of our lead actors were chosen from Israel to ensure authenticity,” said Mary’s director DJ Caruso, best known for thrillers such as Disturbia and xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.

But many people on social media have taken issue with it, especially at a time when tensions are so high in the Middle East. “Jesus, Mary and everyone on this show should be Palestinian,” said one X user. Another wrote: “There is something deeply offensive about an Israeli actor playing Mary while Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, killing some of the world’s oldest Christian communities and obliterating their cultural monuments.” Some commentators have gone straight to blatant anti-Semitism, with Remarks like “This is a joke and a slap in the face for all Christians.” How dare you let this disgusting Jew play the role of Mary?” and “If you make a movie about Mary and she’s played by an Israeli, you deserve to be shot in the head.”

More measured opposition, such as an editorial on the Muslim Girl website, portrays the decision to cast Cohen as part of broader political and social issues. “The frustration surrounding Mary is not about a casting decision,” it says the essay. “It’s about the stories we tell and who gets to tell them. Casting a European Israeli actress as Maria subtly aligns the ancient figure with a modern, Eurocentric Israeli identity – while glossing over the fact that the State of Israel was founded in 1948 after a wave of European migration… For Palestinians who living under occupation and through constant repression, such decisions exacerbate the long history of erasure from the cultural and historical narrative.”

Not surprisingly, others vigorously resisted such accusations. Rod Dreher, a conservative American author based in Hungary, says: “To deny the Judaism of Jesus is not only to deny the clear and unequivocal testimony of Scripture, but to present the entire redemption narrative as nonsense…to label the historical Mary as one .” “Palestinians” – a people and a concept that did not exist at the time of Jesus’ birth – is a malicious anachronism.”

It was not until several centuries after the birth of Jesus that the province of Judea was renamed Syria and Palestine, and it would be half a millennium before the Arab conquests of the region began in earnest. Demographically, the Levant at the time of Jesus’ birth was a mixture of Greek, Babylonian, Persian, Assyrian, Roman and other influences, a melting pot of influences from war, trade and intermarriage.

As for conservative Christians, their objections are largely directed at the film’s violation of Catholic teaching by failing to portray Mary’s relationship with Joseph as chaste, and at the overall questionable historical accuracy of the story – the latter perhaps an unavoidable consequence of the fact that that relatively little is known about Maria’s life. She is often portrayed as a cipher or icon rather than a real person, defined only by her divine destiny: every mention in the Gospels except one refers to the infancy narrative, and John does not even give her a name. (In contrast, she (as Maryam) is the only woman named in the Quran, where a chapter is named after her and she is praised as the supreme woman in all of Islam.)

Although Mary has appeared as a character in numerous films – Olivia Hussey, Verna Bloom, Dorothy McGuire and Maia Morgenstern are among the actresses who have played her – her role has almost always been a supporting role. Biblical stories are predominantly about men, both in the Bible and on the screen. Aside from the many depictions of Jesus, there have been two big-budget interpretations of Old Testament patriarchs relatively recently: in 2014, Russell Crowe starred as the moody Noah in Darren Aronofsky’s film of the same name, and Christian Bale played Moses in Ridley Scott’s Mutilated. Exodus: Gods and Kings. And while there have been many Marian movements and societies over the centuries, few, if any, have ever become an integral part of mainstream church dialogue.

This gap between Mary the symbol and Mary the person is the core of the film. “I wanted to give the world a portrait of the real, human Mary,” Caruso said. Cohen agrees. “She was a young woman who was probably filled with her own fears and insecurities and was suddenly asked to carry immense responsibility… (we) wanted that transformation, the emotional weight she must have carried, and the inner strength that which enabled her to move forward.”

The film’s fusion of the sacred and the secular results in a very modern interpretation. The archangel Gabriel, for example, dressed in flowing azure robes and prone to showing up unannounced, is a cross between sex plague, Basil Exposition, and shampoo commercials. Both he and Satan are no strangers to hoodies (the latter character also owes more than a passing debt to his performance in Mel Gibson’s 2004 The Passion of the Christ, a prime example of the selling power of controversy: that film brought more than $600 ($Millions from a $30 million budget, backed by the enthusiastic support of America’s evangelical community.) And Anthony Hopkins’ Herod, though the film’s standout performance, at times feels like a medley of the actor’s greatest hits – a dash of Hannibal Lecter, a dash of King Lear, a dash of Richard Nixon and a dash of Titus Andronicus.

Mary’s strident tone is best summed up in the final line, in which Mary expresses that “love will cost you dearly.” Love will penetrate your heart. But in the end, love will save the world.” To older generations, this may seem incredibly vile, a repurposing of superficial, falsely inspirational slogans: but the film’s makers clearly intend it to resonate strongly and genuinely with younger audiences.

“Our hope,” says producer Mary Aloe, “is that people will want to learn more about the faith of Mary’s journey, what her family gave up and what she endured to follow her calling to bring us Jesus.” ( We have the world’s youth, the future, at our heart, and this story is needed more than ever.”

Will the noise surrounding Mary hurt either his prospects or Netflix’s bottom line? Unlikely – quite the opposite. The Christian television market is huge. One of Mary’s executive producers is Houston-based megapastor Joel Osteen, whose Lakewood Church has an annual budget of $70 million. The series “The Chosen” about the life and work of Jesus is now considered the most successful crowdfunding TV project in history, which can be viewed for free in its own app and is also licensed to various streamers around the world.

Its creator, Dallas Jenkins, is the son of Jerry B. Jenkins, whose eschatological Left Behind books (co-authored with Tim LaHaye) have sold 80 million copies worldwide. And of course, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is set to return with a sequel next year, 21 years after the original’s release. These may be more traditional Christian projects than Caruso’s more Generation Z-focused take on Maria’s life, but Netflix is ​​betting that a large portion of its audience – and especially its audience’s children – will also be interested in Maria .

Plus, Netflix is ​​doing very well at the moment. Its stock price is at an all-time high (and more than four times higher than its post-pandemic low in 2022), it has 24 winners at this year’s Emmys, and it is entering the lucrative sports market. Bank of America media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich says Netflix’s audience is very loyal: “They’re like the old pay-TV package.” Two hours a day, 60 hours a month. Dollars follow eyeballs.” Perhaps not a particularly Christian principle, but almost certainly a very realistic one.

“Mary” is Netflix’s third major controversy this year. In April, Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer sparked an outcry when viewers managed to uncover the true identity of his stalker, the show’s antagonist; and Erik Menendez, who along with his brother Lyle killed their parents in 1989, spoke out about the siblings’ portrayal in “Monsters” in September. Both series were number one on Netflix worldwide for at least two weeks after their release. Will Mary manage a hat-trick? Netflix will pray for this.

Mary is now on Netflix

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