More than two million people worldwide have signed petitions asking the entertainment provider Netflix to pull a blasphemous film called “The First Temptation of Christ,” which depicts Jesus as a homosexual, his disciples as drunks and his mother as having sexual relations with God, the Father.
The Portugese production is directed by Rodrigo Van Der Put, who similarly released “The Last Hangover” last year, which is a mockery of the Last Supper. “The First Temptation of Christ” is listed on Netflix as a “dark comedy,” and is meant to be a “Christmas special.”
“Jesus, who’s hitting the big 3-0, brings a surprise guest to meet the family,” the description of the movie reads. That “guest” turns out to be Jesus’ “friend,” Orlando, played by Fábio Porchat of the Brazilian comedy group Porta Dos Fundos.
“God is so good/He created the world in seven days/And after a little while/He drowned his creation,” Orlando sings in the trailer.
According to reports, one scene depicts Mary smoking marijuana and another having sexual relations with her Creator. God, the Father, gifts Jesus with a keyboard as a birthday present and offers to teach him tunes from The Beatles. Jesus, after being informed of his divinity, states that the doesn’t want to be the messiah, but rather a juggler.
“When Jesus is informed that Uncle Vittorio is in fact God, and he’s his son, he fantasizes about meeting a constantly bickering trio of Shiva, Buddha and Jah, who tell him to go for it. Allah is with them, but never seen, having disappeared behind a bush,” Variety also explains.
The film has horrified Brazilians, and one launched a petition on Change.org, calling upon Netflix to pull the production and for Porta Dos Fundos to issue an apology. The petition has 1.9 million signatures as of press time.
Another petition was launched on Monday on CitizenGo, and already has 500K signatures.
“Using humor and art as an excuse, this group has attacked Christianity in an unprecedented manner. It is an absolutely unacceptable provocation. … This type of supposed ‘show’ only causes one thing: numbing the population to attacks against Christians,” an outline of the effort states.
Porchat, a co-founder of Porta Dos Fundos, has refused to apologize, however. He pushed back in an interview with Variety, in which he called the outrage “homophobic” and explained that the comedy does not explicitly state that Jesus is in a relationship with Orlando — who is actually Satan.
“We play at insinuating that Jesus has a new friend, and probably this new friend is gay, but they have just been having fun and a very good time in the desert for 40 days,” Porchat said. “If anybody should be angry with us, it should be the gay community because a gay character turns out to be the devil. But the gay community loves us!”
However, others do believe the broadcast suggests that Jesus is in a homosexual relationship, even if indirectly.
“The movie suggests that Jesus has a gay relationship with Orlando. But Jesus tries to deny it by saying that he and Orlando are just friends,” the site Monsters and Critics writes. “Orlando later sings a song to the tune of Jingle Bells on an electronic keyboard God gave to Jesus. He ends the song … implying that they were engaging in gay sex in the desert.”
Porchat opined that Catholics in Brazil seem to have no problem with Jesus otherwise being portrayed as a “bad guy,” suggesting that the outrage is only because of the insinuation that the Son of God is homosexual.
“God is black and white and gay and straight. God is everything,” Porchat remarked. “It’s more homophobic to be insulted by a gay Jesus than to make Jesus special.”
Porta Dos Fundos has also released a statement advising that it “values artistic freedom and humor through satire on the most diverse cultural themes of our society and believes that freedom of expression is an essential construction for a democratic country.”
1 Corinthians 2:14 states, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
1 Corinthians 1:18 also declares, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.”
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