6676 Orchard Lake Rd.i. West Bloomfield TEL 248-851-8782 .- FAX 248-851-7586 ..i, t Fiddler The Industry t INTERNATIONAL DINING Happy it Chanukah Non Dogmatic LET US CATER YOUR HANUKAH PARTY! P . 1 r --- — r-coupoN1 L i I LATKES F 111 ■ 1 MN= — I $14.00 PER DOZ I I 'MINI IATIMS $12.00 PER DOZ I . ERVED WITH APPLE SAUCE .. I I S ERVED it L . 7 t A l t. N iv fig . , OR SOUR CREAM PARTY TRAYS — BEST IN AREA! ii:_i CATERING it, ,-; DELIVERY AVAILABLE Does Hollywood apply a double standard to the Jewish and Catholic religions? A Hollywood insider takes a look at the controversy behind "Dogma." it CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR ORDERS ALSO BEING TAKEN. pp cf t editcut utics.4 0663 6 65 American Heart Association.. Fighting Heart Disease and Stroke The Most Important Instrument in the Treatment of Stroke ©1995. American Heart Association Send Someone Special A Gift 52 Weeks a Year. Send a gift subswation to =WISE NEWS 41 11/26 1999 (248) 354-6620 BRADLEY POMERANCE Special to the Jewish News Oscar win for Best Picture. It only seemed natural that Miramax would distribute Smith's most recent effort, hen the much-anticipat- Dogma. ed film Dogma hit the- However, a first draft of the script aters earlier this month, illegally made its way onto the whatever pos- Internet and into the itive buzz the picture had hands of William Above: Kevin Smith, right, received was drowned out directs Alanis Morisette, as Donohue of the by the controversy relating Catholic League. Goch and Alan Rickman, to the movie's depiction of as a seraphim whose job it Upon reading dialogue Catholicism and the faiths about Joseph and is to be the Voice of God, of Dogma's producers, Mary's sex life and a in "Dogma," a film that Harvey and Bob Weinstein, has resulted in death portrayal of a descen- and its writer/director, dent of Jesus employed threats for its two Jewish Kevin Smith. producers, Harvey and Bob by an abortion clinic, Smith is best known for Donohue, without Weinstein. his award-winning films having seen the film, Clerks and Chasing Amy. launched an all-out Both of these movies were distributed assault against Dogma. with care by art film powerhouse What is most troubling about this Miramax Films, who last year nur- brouhaha is the often inflammatory tured Shakespeare In Love to an upset rhetoric of Dogma's opponents, which has done more to divide two great Brad Pomerance is the entertainment religions than to unite individuals of and media correspondent for Los Angeles- faith. area National Public Radio affiliate Instead of focusing exclusively on KPCC-89.3 FM The views expressed in the allegedly blasphemous portions of this article are solely his own. the film, Donohue has suggested that Hollywood applies a double stan- dard to the Jewish and Catholic religions. "If Jews can complain about Palestinian sympathizer Vanessa Redgrave playing Jews [in movies], we can complain against [Dogma]," he said. In a recent editorial, Professor Thomas Doherty of Brandeis University claimed that "if Hollywood routinely portrayed Orthodox rabbis as sordid agents of Israel, editorial pages across the nation would launch cruise mis- siles at the offenders." Posted on the official Dogma Web site, one piece of hate mail exclaimed, "If you attacked the Jewish religion — Reform or Orthodox — in the same man- ner, our Jewish friends would have you sued beyond compare." That Jews or the Jewish reli- gion may or may not be depicted by Hollywood in a profane man- ner should be irrelevant to the question of whether Dogma's alleged heretical treatment of Catholicism crosses the line. Actually, Dogma is a satirical work starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They play angels, stuck on Earth for defying God, who are trying to make their way back to heaven by concocting an irreverent scheme to become eligible for entrance into the Pearly Gates. As a practicing Catholic himself, Smith sees his movie as nothing less than "a recruitment film for the Catholic Church." Given that the film contains gratu- itous violence, foul language and fart jokes, Smith professes that the picture "is too adolescent to be taken serious- ly." Evidently not. The battle between the Catholic Church and Hollywood actually traces its recent history back to the 1988 release of Universal Pictures' The Last Temptation of Christ. This war escalat- ed even further when the Catholic League formally targeted the Walt Disney Company in 1995. The League led a boycott of the entire Disney empire when its subsidiary, Miramax Films, released Priest, a film depicting a Catholic cleric as homo- sexual. In 1997, the League mounted another protest against Disney and its ABC network over Nothing Sacred, a