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This chapter reviews critical coverage of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and finds little attempt to understand or portray the movie on its own terms—that it was not any effort at a literal portrayal of the gospels but was structured around a very specifically Catholic piety centered on the Stations of the Cross and the Eucharistic sensibility of Christ’s body and blood. Because they did not grasp these liturgical dimensions, the media instead focused on controversies about the movie’s purported anti-Semitism, its bloodiness, and supposed literalism. This led to many wrong predictions, including that the movie would bomb at the box office, that Gibson would lose his fortune, and that it would ignite a wave of anti-Semitism, and missing a major story—that millions of evangelicals warmly embraced a picture of very Roman Catholic sensibility.

This chapter considers the Peking Opera. It takes preparation in advance to enjoy a Peking Opera, as it requires concentration that's a few notches above the standard Mel Gibson action thriller. In the nineteenth century, Peking Opera troupes were hard pressed to find rehearsal studios. Some people think of Peking Opera as a never changing element in Chinese culture. There were two influences in the aesthetic of Peking Opera. The first was minimalism and the second was the primacy of suggestion over detail. Until the 1930s, all Peking Opera performers were men on account of Confucian sentiments against women performing in public. Peking Opera drew a distinction between wen and wu. The former tend to be poetic and, truthfully, tougher sledding for a foreign audience. The latter usually entails a dazzling display of acrobatics that can hold the attention of the most devoted Mel Gibson fan.

This chapter focuses on the presence of torture in many of Mel Gibson’s films, including The Passion of the Christ, Braveheart, and Apocalypto. It argues that while Gibson heroes—with the exception of Jesus in The Passion—are ferocious toward their enemies, they do not condone torture per se. Indeed, they are cast as valiant victims of it. In the Gibson schema, revenge is what good guys justifiably inflict on their enemies. Torture is what the bad guys do. The chapter suggests that Gibson’s films actually “condemn the use of torture.” The male characters in these films are victims of torture, a torture that often ends in sacrifice, and the suffering that they endure grants them a purified and patriarchal masculinity that invites honor.

This chapter discusses positive commentaries of the Vatican on Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. It suggests that the rush to laud the film and the sense of certainty about it characterizes the new Catholic apologetic. This certainty may be attributed to the rhetoric of Vatican II documents that sought to describe the universal quality of the Church by equating it with an ideal: the entire holy people, and to the confidence within the Catholic hierarchy that comes from the peculiar way the Church of the late 20th and early 21st centuries has tried to explain its relationship to history.

In the years after 1980, with rapid social change in sexual and political mores, Hamlet came more and more to be a text reflecting the new age of anxiety and social conflict. The poststructural method in criticism of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault found the play a fertile territory for exploration of virtually infinite flexibility in language. The New Historicism of Stephen Greenblatt and others focused on such matters as Elizabethan attitudes toward Purgatory. Feminist study by Coppélia Kahn, Marjorie Garber, and others studied the play in terms feminist anthropology. Productions on stage and in film followed suit with revisionist interpretations by Mark Rylance, Mel Gibson, Jude Law, Kenneth Branagh, David Tennant, and others. The impact of Hamlet on the modern world continues to grow.

This chapter examines the use that evangelical pastors and men's groups have made of the Mel Gibson film Braveheart (1995) in their dialogue about masculinity, the roles and assumed responsibilities of men. It looks at how the film provides language and images through which these men imagine and articulate what it means for them to be evangelical husbands and fathers. Implicit here is an argument that popular culture provides language and images that more adequately or honestly get at the struggles of particular communities. The chapter focuses on the way some white men who remain within the church find its language and images inadequate, and turn to a particular example of popular culture to explore their roles and responsibilities.

This chapter explores the sequels to George Miller's Mad Max (1979): Mad Max 2 (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). It also looks at the influence of Mad Max. Mad Max's cultural credentials are evident in the array of films, television shows, music videos, and art installations it influenced, or on works which make direct reference to it. The chapter then studies the video essay Terror Nullius (2018), which was commissioned by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. This playful video essay uses footage from Mad Max to satirise Mel Gibson and denounce his misogynistic, racist rants. The chapter also considers the relationship between Mad Max and The Rover (2014). The Mad Max comparisons largely stem from the fact that The Rover is also set in the future and is situated around a great shift in the country's fortunes. And, as with Mad Max, the future is stripped down and desolate, hinting at rather than showing social decay.

This chapter discusses the development of George Miller's Mad Max (1979). The first iteration of Mad Max did not involve a cops-and-robbers setup; nor the bleak dystopian future setting or car chases. A vital aspect n the construction of the film's dystopian vision was Miller's medical background and years working as a doctor, as well as his exposure to road accidents growing up, which were frequent enough to leave a lasting mark. Another specific influence on the film was the 1973 oil crisis. The pervading mood of Mad Max is Australia decaying, going wrong, heading towards calamity, losing its way fast. The chapter then details the casting of Mel Gibson for the role of Max Rockatansky, as well as the shooting process of Mad Max.