While the vast amount of scholarly literature has provided a
powerful argument for Mary Magdalene’s leadership and importance
in scripture, art and culture, mainstream audiences remain mostly
unaware of this fact, embracing the “repentant whore” image
circulated by patriarchal leaders for centuries. As 2005 ushers
Mary Magdalene back into pop culture consciousness through the
success of the bestseller The Da Vinci Code and an ensuing
film adaptation, it is important to examine how fictional films
represent Magdalene. This article focuses on an analysis of Martin
Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988; 2000) because
Magdalene serves as a main character, and Scorsese claims he
made a “visionary” rendering of Jesus’ life
and death, including his relationship with Magdalene. Critiquing
Scorsese’s version of Magdalene in light of the wealth
of scholarship that refutes the portrait of Magdalene as a prostitute
dramatizes how the misrepresentation is maintained in the popular
imagination, as well as ways she may be (re)presented in the
future.
[1] As Pamela Thimmes surmises in her 1998 literature review, “Memory
and Re-Vision: Mary Magdalene Research since 1975,” there
have been more than nine monographs and hundreds of scholarly
articles written about Magdalene, not to mention thousands of
anecdotal references and footnotes. Furthermore, the range of
studies is remarkable, ranging from “biblical text-critical,
historical-critical and feminist studies to biographies and studies
examining the art, music, drama, liturgy, piety and poetry” devoted
to Magdalene.1 In Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle
for Authority (2003), Ann Graham Brock seconds Thimmes conclusions
stating that an “impressive number of studies and monographs
on Mary Magdalene have appeared in recent years,” which
focus on both canonical and noncanonical sources.2 Karen
King asserts a stronger opinion about what the current scholarship
reveals: The “portrait of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute,
repentant or otherwise, has no basis whatsoever in historical
tradition.”3 However, while most scholars agree that the
image of Magdalene as a repentant whore is a distortion, they
differ in explaining why, how, and when this occurred. Scholars
like Antti Marjanen note that since at least the sixth century,
the most common perspective among nonscholars remains the conflated
version of Magdalene: “Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany
(John 12, 1-8), and the anonymous anointers in Mary 14, 3-9 (Matt
26, 6-13) and Luke 7, 36-50 were one and the same person.”4
Furthermore, since the time of Gregory the Great in the late
Middle Ages, this “interpretation gained such a dominant
position in the Western Church that those who disagreed with
it risked being condemned by the church.”5This long
history of interpretation in which Magdalene is represented as
a prostitute rather than an apostle or community leader, as well
as Western Christianity’s adherence to this traditional
conception, continues to permeate contemporary novels, plays,
films and TV presentations.
[2] If, as Jane Schaberg argues in The Resurrection of Mary
Magdalene, religion can be assumed as a key role in the
dynamics of women’s oppression, then feminist scholars
have much at stake for (re)presenting Magdalene and revising
the “harlotized” version that has existed since
591.6 Disrupting this skewed image would help to challenge
the Petrine Christianity that maintains the circumscribed
roles for women, provide an alternative for women who do not
subscribe or conform to such doctrines and unsilence those
who have been muted in its wake. While the vast amount of
literature has provided a powerful argument for Magdalene’s
leadership and importance in scripture, art and culture, mainstream
audiences remain mostly unaware of this fact.
[3] While scholars like Schaberg point out how Magdalene as a
complex, round character has proven too big for Hollywood, there
has been little analysis of how she is has been portrayed in
mainstream media and the effects of such representations.7 When
Magdalene is mentioned in film critiques, such as Martin Medhurst’s “Temptation
as Taboo: A Psychorhetorical Reading of The Last Temptation
of Christ,” she remains a secondary character, examined
only in her relation to Jesus as the protagonist.8 Maintaining
this secondary status has far-reaching consequences. As film/media
scholars argue, “entertainment texts” are the most
powerful and pervasive devices for confirming the ideas and values
that underlie our culture—its fundamental ideology (“common
sense”) and hegemony (“natural/normal”).9 Furthermore,
as Jean Baudrillard claims, mass media establishes ideology rather
than reflects it, creating representations of reality, a reality
dominated by simulations that give the appearance of reality.
From this perspective, media does more than just provide information;
it changes the way reality is experienced in that it destabilizes “the
real and the true.”10 As bell hooks reminds readers, television
and mass media are the great weapons of white supremacist patriarchal
values that are projected into our living rooms and into the
most intimate spaces of our lives.11 Therefore, it is important
to examine how and what films represent and the
effects of these choices in order to understand how these images
might be resisted and challenged.
[4] A key film to (re)examine is Scorsese’s The Last
Temptation of Christ specifically for these reasons: Magdalene
serves as a main character; Scorsese represents a respected
and popular director; the film remains steeped in controversy;
the director claims he made a “visionary” rendering
of Jesus’ life and death; he and Barbara Hershey co-created
the Magdalene representation; and the film was made when a
wealth of scholarship existed that refuted Magdalene’s
portrait as a “penitent woman with a notorious past.”12
While film critic David Ehrenstein asks, “Can we finally
look at The Last Temptation of Christ in the 21st century,?”13
I want to pose different questions: How does Scorsese situate
Mary Magdalene in his controversial film? How can we better
understand the decisions behind maintaining the conflated
version of Magdalene as a prostitute rather than apostle?
How does the Scorsese/Hershey characterization reflect patriarchal
paradigms? As one of the most prominent women in Christian
Testament, how does the version of Magdalene argued in his
film shape the culture’s consciousness? Scorsese, adapting
Kanzantzakis’ novel, reveals his willingness to consider
scripture in new ways, imagining Jesus as a carpenter who
made crucifixion crosses for a living, Judas as a man of honor,
and John the Baptist as a fanatical Pentecostal. While Scorsese
takes greats pains to create a visionary film of a human Jesus,
he codifies the historical inaccuracy of Magdalene’s
role within the guise of opening up new spaces for her. As
a result, the Scorsese/Hershey characterization of Magdalene
imprisons her in popular culture’s collective consciousness
as a reformed prostitute with no apostolic authority, a woman
whose agency is usurped by patriarchal discourses.
Searching for the Real Mary Magdalene
[5]Before looking at how Magdalene is characterized in the film,
it’s important to gain a more accurate, historical sense
of her as documented in a variety of biblical and scholarly sources.
In The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, Schaberg summarizes
the Gospel and non-canonical sources that allude to her:
According to all four Christian Testament gospels, Mary Magdalene
is a—perhaps the—primary witness to the fundamental
data of the early Christian faith. She is said to have participated
in the Galilean career of Jesus of Nazareth, followed him to
Jerusalem, stood by at his execution and burial, found his tomb
empty and received an explanation of that emptiness. Two texts
mention that seven demons had come out of her (Luke 8:2; Mark
16:9). According to three accounts (Mark 16:7, Matthew 28:7;
Josh 20:17) she is sent with a commission to deliver the explanation
of the empty tomb to the disciples. Also according to three accounts
(Matt 28: 9-10; John 20: 14-18; Mark 16:9) she was the first
to experience a vision or appearance of the resurrected Jesus.
Gnostic materials [e.g., Gospel of Mary] present her as a leading
intellectual and spiritual guide of the early, post-Easter community,
as a visionary, the Savior’s beloved companion, a
conduit for and interpreter of his teachings. 14
However, as the Gospel of Mary chronicles, even while
Jesus charged her with the responsibility to serve as apostolorum
apostola (apostle of the apostles) after his Ascension, disciples
Peter and Andrew took issue with Magdalene’s teachings,
refusing to embrace her vision and expressing their jealousythat
Jesus appeared to her rather than them.15 Yet she persevered
as a visionary leader, defended by Jesus and the other fellow
disciples such as Levi who honored her: “Peter, you have
always been hot-tempered . . . If the Savior made her worthy,
who are you to reject her? . . . Surely the Savior knows her
very well. That is why he loved her more than us.”16 In
fact, while Brock demonstrates that numerous early Christian
texts assign apostolic authority to Magdalene, when “Mary
and Peter are both present in the text, Peter consistently challenges
her authority or diminishes her status, often in overt and blatant
ways.” 17 Brock’s argument illustrates another significant
conflict that diminishes Magdalene’s apostolic authority,
especially in canonical sources.
[6] But even Christ’s acknowledgement of the importance
of Magdalene’s role couldn’t save her from the patriarchal
and cultural forces that would marginalize women. Once the pro-Petrine
tendencies in the Gospel of Luke were adopted by church leaders
who wanted to diminish women’s leadership roles and, as
Schaberg argues, “attach female sexuality to notions of
evil, repentance and mercy,” political and ideological
forces superseded historical realities.18While Mary Thompson
notes in Mary Magdala: Apostle and Leader that some scholars
trace Magdalene’s misrepresentation as a prostitute back
to a fourth century interpretation of Luke 8:2 that juxtaposes
immoral behavior with prostitution,19 most trace the inaccuracy
to 591 when Pope Gregory the Great falsely conflated her with
Mary of Bethany (John 12: 1-8) and the unnamed sinner in Luke
7: 36-50.20 As King argues, once these initial identifications
were secured, “Magdalene could be associated with every
unnamed sinful woman in the gospels, including the adulteress
in John 8:1-11 and the Syrophoenician woman with her five and
more husbands in John 4:7-30. Mary the apostle and teacher became
Mary the repentant whore.”21 While centuries later, in
1969, the Catholic church officially corrected its error, trying
to erase her sinful reputation by declaring that she was one
of many followers of Jesus, the conflated image of Magdalene
as a prostitute lingers in the mainstream consciousness.22
[7] The new feminist research on Magdalene provides an
impetus to revisit The Last Temptation of Christ as a
way to understand the discrepancy between scholarship on Magdalene
and her representation in the popular imagination. However, before
examining the film, it is important to get some background on
its production history. Adapted from the 1955 novel, The Last
Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis, the film began
pre-production in 1983 for Paramount Pictures. Weeks before shooting
started, the project was cancelled, largely due to a letter writing
campaign engineered by right-wing fundamentalist Christian groups.23
Scorsese persevered, finally gaining production approval from
Universal in 1987, enduring a 58-day physically demanding shooting
schedule and a wave of protests, beginning on August 11, 1988.24
Even though most of the protestors hadn’t seen the movie,
fundamentalist leaders such as Tim Penland and Bill Bright “orchestrated
a campaign demanding nothing less than [the movie’s] total
destruction.”25 Once Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Pat
Boone, and even Franco Zefferelli voiced their disapproval, the
movie assumed its rightful role as the “most controversial
film of the 1980s.”26 The main objection stemmed from the
film’s focus on Christ’s humanity, which dramatizes
the mortal struggle of Jesus as Everyman to discover his divinity.27 The
fundamentalist wrath was fueled by a “sex scene” between
Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Although the film begins with a disclaimer
that it is based on a “fictional exploration of the eternal
spirit”28 rather than the Gospels and this scene is part
of a dream sequence as Jesus hangs on the cross in agony until
he embraces his divinity, right-wingers attacked it as “blasphemous.”
Production Notes: Constructing Mary Magdalene
[8] In addition to all the controversy, the story behind
the making of The Last Temptation of Christ remains almost
as interesting as the film itself, especially when examining
the available scholarship about the creative choices made by
both Scorsese and Barbara Hershey. Scorsese explains that Hershey
gave him a copy of Kazantzakis’ book in 1972 when they
were filming Box Car Bertha. When he finally read it,
he was captivated. Raised a Roman Catholic, Scorsese was intrigued
with the human side of Christ. He wanted to make a film that
reflected those ideas and prompted people to think about or rethink
their perceptions of Jesus. After the 1983 production was cancelled,
he told Barbara Hershey, who had been cast as Magdalene, “I’m
not going to give up until I make the film.” Hershey assured
him, “I was put on earth to play this part.”29 While
Scorsese’s vision of Jesus (and even Judas) in the film
was open to new possibilities, he only partially considered a
revision of Magdalene’s characterization. In the DVD commentary,
Scorsese explains that he thought the book’s premise that
Mary Magdalene was a prostitute because of Jesus’ rejection
was too convenient. Scorsese explains that what is important
about Magdalene is that she is part of the overall scheme: “She,
like Judas, is part of his sacrifice and redemption. They are
both holier than the other characters.”30 In Biblical
Epics, Bruce Babington and Peter Evans conclude that Scorsese’s
version of Magdalene “does not represent a disdain for
female sexuality, but an inability to see women as other than
sexual, that is, as female and spiritual.”31 Therefore,
while Scorsese grants the character more agency and screen-time
than previous films, he still frames her within the same gendered
constructs that have libeled her for centuries.
[9] As Hershey waited for the film to be made, she immersed herself
in study, focusing on the “Gospel of Thomas” in the Gnostic
Gospels. She reports uncovering the patriarchal nature of
ancient times and discovering how the patriarchal establishment
became very anti-female in order to suppress the older religions
where women had power. She also records how she learned that
Christ welcomed women among his followers. Even when everyone
else ran away, women remained at the crucifixion.32 Interestingly,
even though Hershey consulted a Gnostic source that names Magdalene
as one of the six disciples, she does not seem to reconsider
Magdalene’s leadership qualities or uncover the wealth
of evidence provided by scholars that refute her depiction as
a prostitute.
[10] While Scorsese and Hershey’s oversights might reflect
the barriers that complicate how scholarship enters the mainstream
consciousness, they report conducting extensive research about
the history and culture, as well as into the scripture itself
(on the DVD Commentary, Scorsese documents some of his research
over the years to get the look and feel of the film). Therefore,
it is important to keep in mind the wealth of sources about Magdalene
that were available at that time, including many of the materials
reviewed above. Marjanen provides a useful historical overview
of the sources that would have been available during the conception
of the film in the 1970s and early 1980s. While much of the interest
in Mary Magdalene focused on the canonical texts and the question
of Magdalene’s relationship to the four anointers of the
New Testament, by the 1970s Marjanen illustrates how the situation “changed
decisively,” because of three key factors:
First, the publication of the Nag Hammadi Library begun in the
late 50s and completed in the form of a facsimile edition in
the 70s, offered four new sources in which Mary Magdalene is
depicted in a way different from that of the canonical gospels
but somewhat similar to that of the Gospel of MaryandPistis
Sophia. The Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the
Savior, the First Apocalypse of James, and the Gospel
of Philip all give Mary Magdalene a significant role.
Second, .
. . the number of sources multiplied, but also a new and third
perspective . . . was introduced . . . religious
texts dealing with women have been studied more than ever
before under the presupposition that they provide information
about attitudes towards women prevailing in the religious
circles where the texts originated and were read . . .33
In light of the available scholarship and feminist theories of
interpretation and historical recovery and revision, it is fascinating
to witness the power of patriarchal ideology to maintain the
Magdalene myth even when individuals like Scorsese and Hershey
presume to open their minds to other possibilities. Their perceptions
were so steeped in the patriarchal system that maintains the
inaccurate representation of Magdalene that they did not even
question the assumption that she was a prostitute. Interestingly,
their inventive process mirrors how Magdalene became recognized
as a whore–an intricate process where history and its texts
are empowered and disempowered, ignored and observed within dominant
ideologies.
[11] When the movie was finally put into production, Hershey
and Scorsese met to discuss the character. After all of her reading
in preparation for the part, Hershey recalls that she “brought
[a] list of questions about what Mary Magdalene would look like.”34
While a focus on physicality is essential to creating a character,
it also suggests some deep-seated assumptions about Magdalene.
They had both seen tattoos on women, as well as henna on the
feet, when perusing various archeological sources. Agreeing these
features were essential to Magdalene’s character, they
decided to make these attributes red in the film because “it’s
more beautiful, it would show up more, and it seemed like something
a whore would do.”35 Immediately, at the inception of the
character, Hershey and Scorsese locked Magdalene into a visual
representation that reinforced a historically circumscribed view
of her position.
[12] From a scholarly viewpoint this assumption suggests a certain
historical ignorance or neglect; however, Hershey reports a different
perspective about constructing the character. She asserts that
all the contradictory research “liberated” them to
do what they wanted with the Magdalene character: “Marty
had me walking with Jesus and the disciples in many scenes. The
only scenes I couldn’t appear in were the ones at the temple
where women weren’t allowed. He even embraced the idea
of Christ’s having women at the Last Supper.”36 While
their meticulous research resulted in some important representational
innovations, they never seemed to debate the issue about characterizing
Magdalene as a prostitute. In fact, Hershey describes her fascination
with the conflated version of Magdalene: “The thing that
fascinated me about Mary Magdalene is that she represents all
aspects of womanhood: she’s a whore and a victim, a complete
primal animal, and then she’s reborn and become virginal
and sisterlike. She evolves through all phases of womanhood,
so it was a wonderful role in that way . . . ”37 Obviously,
Scorsese agreed with this image. While he envisioned Jesus as
a man “who broke all the rules,” who wouldn’t
tell women to “wait in the kitchen,”38 he could/would
not see beyond the Madonna/whore paradigm of Magdalene that Hershey
articulates. As such, even though Magdalene appears briefly within
Jesus’ trusted inner circle, she is hardly liberated from
her historical condemnation as whore. Therefore, applying Gayle
Rubin’s framework for understanding prostitution, casting
Magdalene as a prostitute keeps her in the “straight-jacket
of gender” that condemns women to a secondary position
in human relations and perpetuates Christianity’s Madonna/whore
paradigm. In essence, Magdalene is “trafficked” in
exchange for Scorsese’s vision of Jesus, which ultimately
serves the patriarchal misrepresentation he (re)produces. 39
Scorsese/Hershey’s Magdalene on Screen
[13]Frame by frame, Scorsese and Hershey reveal the implications
of their complete disregard of Magdalene’s being beyond
the prostitute stock character. In The Last Temptation of
Christ (LTC), Scorsese gives Magdalene more screen
time than other biblical films, past or present. In fact, she
and Judas function as main characters in the movie. Unfortunately,
much like the fate of most female characters in Hollywood, LTC’s
Magdalene soon finds her place among the litany of Scorsese film
women–wives, mothers or mistresses who mostly suffer in
silence and provide temporary distractions for the male protagonists.
In addition to historical inaccuracies, Magdalene’s characterization
on screen underscores how sexuality is represented differently
for men and women, especially in Western Christianity. While
Jesus (Man) can serve as universal signifier for humanity, his
sexual drives the norm, women are not supposed to have sexual
drives, the model for sexuality being the Virgin Mary (Woman),
who remains unscathed by desire. Therefore, women associated
with sexuality (Magdalene) must occupy the position of “fallen
woman,” a staple of Western patriarchal narratives. When
Scorsese casts Magdalene within the discourse of “fallen
woman,” he renders her a symbol of men’s temptation.
Schaberg articulates the significance of this assignment: “Reduced
to her sexuality, she is . . . blamed for provoking sexual
desire . . ., often the target of male sexual aggression
and hostility, moral outrage, and condemnation.”40 Within
this conceptual framework, Magdalene the prostitute is viewed
as seductress, victim or entrepreneur, which not only greatly
reduces the complexity surrounding prostitution but also the
scholarly evidence about her apostolic authority. However, as
Andrea Dworkin argues, even without demonizing prostitutes, most
people are ambivalent and uncomfortable thinking about the nature
of prostitution because of the realization that “male domination
of the female body is the basic material reality of [all] women’s
lives.”41 From this perspective, whatever agency Scorsese/Hershey
may have envisioned for Magdalene as the world’s most famous
prostitute is quickly thwarted by the historical stigma she embodies
in the popular imagination, making her an archetype of sin rather
than spirituality and agency. Such a status not only diminishes
Magdalene’s significance and complexity, but also articulates
far-reaching consequences for women trapped in the same one-dimensionality
of being.
[14] Many third wave feminist scholars remind us that the concept
of prostitute has meaning only within the patriarchal ideology
in which such forms of work carry a stigma generated from double
standards of sexual morality and negative attitudes to sex.42
Debra Satz, for example, argues that “if prostitution is
wrong it is because of its effects on how men perceive women
and on how women perceive themselves. In our society, prostitution
represents women as the sexual servants of men.”43 Satz
conjectures that the negative image of women promoted by prostitution “shapes
and influences the way women as a whole are seen”44 Satz’s
view is dramatized within the first five minutes of LTC when
Magdalene’s character is introduced. Magdalene appears
as a marked body, immediately signifying the male gaze. A close-up
of Magdalene’s feet covered with henna tattoos transitions
into a pan up her body into a close-up of her face as she spits
in Jesus’ face. The tattoos reinforce her inferior status
and highlight how Jesus (and society) perceives her. Hershey
used the tattoos as part of her backstory, explaining that Magdalene
is trying to “make herself despicable because she’s
trying to be the lowest of the low.”45The tattoos
would give “a feeling of a woman marking herself. And yet,
they were beautiful.”46While one might read the
tattoos as Magdalene’s attempt to control her body under
the most extreme circumstances, to express herself, mapping her
rebellion onto a body bound by patriarchy, this interpretation
ultimately disintegrates within the film’s gendered environment.
As Schaberg asserts, viewing Magdalene within the typical connotations
of prostitute “underplay the moral agency and survival
skills of Magdalene and those she represents, emphasizing instead
the power of Jesus and his forgiveness.”47 Ultimately,
Magdalene never belongs to herself, whether she is acting out
as “whore” or “redeemed” by Jesus.
[15] In fact, Magdalene is defined by her relationship with Jesus. Because
there was no backstory about Jesus and Magdalene’s relationship,
Scorsese and Hershey collaborated on how to show their connection:
[When she spits on him] “you know they have something going
on, that she’s a woman, he’s a man–angry enough
to spit at someone, there must be something going on.”48
They also conceived the relationship in terms of romantic attractions
rather than any semblance of intellectual or theological debate
in which the two might engage. Even in Scorsese and Hershey’s
attempt to open the spaces that Magdalene might occupy, she remains
defined by an emotional relationship to Jesus. Consequently,
like any movie ingénue, her worth is determined by the
male gaze and enacting her proper subservient role. As Hershey
explains, “if she couldn’t get her man, be Jesus’ bride,
what she feels is her destiny, then she’ll ‘be mud.’”49
Interestingly, when Magdalene spits on Jesus, there is a glimpse
of her power. While the intention of the action was meant to
dramatize their intimate relationship, it might also be construed
as Magdalene’s appraisal of Jesus’ spirituality. From
this perspective, the spitting seems to express her disdain forJesus’ weakness
in light of his chosen piety, more than her feelings of rejection.However,
Magdalene’s self-assertion is quickly absorbed in the patriarchal
paradigm that maintains her as the whore in the mainstream imagination.
[16] Later in the film the contradictions between artistic
intent and patriarchal representations manifest in the film’s“brothel
scene,” one of the most memorable sequences in which Jesus’ humanity
is introduced, including his sexuality. In the first part of
the scene, Jesus sits in the outer room of Magdalene’s
brothel, waiting among her “clients,” declining his
own turn and watching men of all ethnicities bed her until night
falls and only he remains. The intensity of the scene is remarkable,
making it difficult for viewers to witness. Indescribable pain
and humiliation engulf Magdalene’s face as she essentially
endures a public gang bang. Scorsese’s provocative mise-en-scène dramatizes
Hershey’s view of the character: “Magdalene was supposed
to be fantastic, to warrant the fact that men would come throughout
the world to see her.”50 Even though Hershey and Willem
Dafoe report that one of the actors “overplayed” his
part, actually ravishing Hershey so that Scorsese and the camera
man, Ballhaus, yelled out for the man to stop,51 Hershey
kept the camera rolling and used the molestation to “express
the profound pain” of the character.52 She also rejected
the use of a body double: “I didn’t feel that [a
double] would move like I would move. I knew if I did the scene,
I’d really feel like a whore.”53 While Hershey’s
account can be understood as method acting, the degradation of
both the character and actor’s body contradicts Scorsese’s
vision that the scene should highlight Jesus’ compassion
as he “fights his sexual desire for her.”54 The brothel
scene also unveils a dramatic shift for both characters. While
Jesus gains agency to embrace his destiny, Magdalene assumes
a more tertiary role in his life and submits to her role as repentant
whore.
[17] Other issues emerge from this dramatic rendering of Jesus
and Magdalene’s interaction in the brothel. Interestingly,
while this scene is designed to demonstrate Christ’s divinity
through his resistance to sexual temptation, it also marks Jesus’ complicity
in the patriarchal ideologies that construct “prostitute,” and
the slippage between Scorsese/Hershey’s articulation of
Magdalene’s agency in the film and the patriarchal condemnation
she suffers. While in the novel Jesus sits outside in the courtyard
unable to view the action inside, in Scorsese’s version
Jesus watches Magdalene and remains fully aware that these sexual
acts are self-destructive, not pleasurable or transgressive.
The medium point of view shots are edited between the pain and
humiliation that resonates from Magdalene’s face and Jesus’ reactions
and inability to admit the truth of what is happening to her.
In fact, Jesus’ pained reactions suggest more about his
inability to intervene or acknowledge Magdalene’s victimization
rather than his capacity to resist sexual temptation. While Hershey
explains that she approached the scene thinking “what is
more difficult for Christ to watch, her pleasure or her pain?”,
she also documents how she got to the extreme pain of the character,
noting that Magdalene doesn’t ever express sexual pleasure.55
In this way, the scene is not just about Jesus’ sexual
desire. Rather, by maintaining the conflated version of Magdalene,
it marks another example of Scorsese’s inability to represent
women as other than sexual. While this mindset mirrors patriarchal
Christianity’s ideology about women’s prescribed
roles, it also reduces the film’s narrative possibilities.
Instead of Magdalene and Jesus discussing and debating his reluctance
to accept his divine destiny and Magdalene serving as an apostle
(i.e., a more accurate portrayal of their relationship), she
is forced to express herself only through her subjected and objectified
body.
[18] In the second part of the scene, Magdalene sees Jesus. The
cinematography emphasizes Magdalene’s pain and self-contempt.
A tracking, point of view shot leads to a close-up of Magdalene’s
naked back as she asks: “Who’s out there? Who is
it?”56 Scorsese also uses subliminally slow motion in the
moment that Magdalene turns and looks at Jesus, the wretchedness
of her exposure and humiliation wash across her face as she tries
to cover her naked body in front of him: “You sit out there
all day with the others and come in with your head down and say
forgive me. It’s not that easy. Go away. God can save your
soul.”57 The slow motion creates a feeling of urgency between
the characters. While the scene was designed to reinforce Scorsese’s
emphasis on the “inner torments of spiritual life” represented
by sexual temptation, it also unmasks the realities of Magdalene’s
subjugation at the hands of patriarchal discourse.58 Her pain
stems from anger and shame, both rooted in her perception of
Jesus’ weakness and indecision and the psychic brutality
of her subjection to the male will. Scorsese’s intention
was to emphasize that Jesus feels guilty because his rejection
of Magdalene results in her prostitution. However, Magdalene
seems more frustrated by his complicity in her agony and lack
of agency than just his “rejection” of her as a romantic
partner: “If you weren’t hanging onto your mother,
you were hanging on to me; now you’re hanging onto God.”59
While Scorsese describes the core conflict of the film as Jesus’ journey
to his ultimate destiny, it is striking how his assent is supported
by the diminution of the women in his life who must suffer in
the wake of his transformation. The “brothel scene” provides
the necessary narrative conflict that propels Jesus forward on
his divine journey. However, within twenty minutes, Magdalene
is repositioned in the background for the rest of the film, recapitulating
centuries of misrepresentation in the public imagination.
[19] Throughout the rest of the film, Magdalene is relegated
to serve as bas relief for Jesus’ divinity. In effect,
her behaviour/body (i.e., prostitution) rather than her being
(Mary Magdalene who steadfastly stays by Jesus’ side even
more than the other apostles) becomes the character in the film.
Because of her prostitution and thus penchant for Edenic temptation,
Magdalene serves as the instrument that grants Jesus his agency.
When Jesus goes out into the desert and inscribes a circle in
the sand in an effort to assert his will over the demons in his
head, a serpent appears speaking in Magdalene’s voice.
According to Scorsese, the snake “represents sexuality
in all its forms–even in thought.”60 This symbolic
choice also reflects the patriarchal ideologies circulating throughout
the film. The female, specifically Magdalene, must represent
temptation, in all forms. The snake utters, “Jesus, I forgive
you.”61 While Scorsese does not resist the temptation to
perpetuate the myth of woman as the downfall of man, Jesus, unlike
Adam, resists the temptation of carnal knowledge, thus gaining
more potency from the encounter.
[20] While it is clear that Scorsese/Hershey empower Magdalene
in some ways, once she assumes her role as “repentant whore,” her
personal power is depleted. As an angry mob drags Magdalene by
her feet preparing to stone her for her sins, Jesus “saves” her,
proclaiming: “Love one another.”62 While Jesus begins
his ministry, Magdalene, although spared from death, is relegated
to a plot device rather than antagonist or even associate. She
also grows to be dependent on the paternalistic “help” of
Jesus. Furthermore, when she attempts to gain more equality in
the relationship after her “conversion,” asking to
accompany Jesus on his travels, he demands that she remain in
Magdala. After he tenderly wipes the blood from Magdalene’s
feet after the aborted stoning, she submits to her role as redeemed
sinner, veiling her face, covering her body and penitently following
Christ.
[21] Repentance, however, does not spare Magdalene from more
pain and judgment. Henna tattoos and black garments are replaced
with the bright blue dress associated with the Virgin Mary. As
Magdalene, Jesus, Judas and a couple of his other apostles attend
a wedding, they are abruptly stopped by one guest who protests
the attendance of a whore: “You don’t belong
here. . . It’s against the law.”63 While Jesus proclaims
that “the law is against my heart” and that the kingdom
of God is like a wedding where God is the bridegroom and man’s
spirit is the bride, Magdalene never escapes the victimization
that accompanies her characterization of whore–practicing
or reformed.64 Even when Magdalene is portrayed at the Last Supper,
she embodies the Madonna/whore paradigm, appearing with Jesus’ mother,
Mary. Therefore, even in her steadfast support of Christ’s
journey towards his divine destiny, she remains configured by
patriarchal discourses, a scapegoat upon which male narratives
are construed. Remaining as part of the mise-en-scène,
Magdalene endures only in the capacity of serving the conflated
version that the film (re)produces.
[22] While the “blasphemous” dream sequence provides
Christ’s last temptation, it also seals Magdalene’s
historical fate on screen. Even though the vision presents her
as chaste bride, she is still associated with carnal lust and
temptation. A satanic angel dressed as a little girl (not in
the book) escorts Jesus to a vision of Magdalene all in white
who lives in a little house in the woods. When he arrives, she
cradles Jesus in her arms and tenderly washes him. They make
love and then take pleasure in their domesticity—Magdalene
pregnant and fixing dinner. However, Magdalene dies–a bright
white light highlights her smile as she disappears from the screen.
In his grief, Jesus grabs an axe and seeks revenge only to learn
from the little girl that “God killed her,” and that
he should “trust God’s way.”65 Christ soon
marries Lazarus’s sister, Mary, “Magdalene with a
different face,” the little girl suggests–and raises
a family.66 He also enjoys an adulterous fling with Martha, which
the little girl justifies, stating “there’s only
one woman in the world–one with many faces.”67
[23] Critics interpret the meaning of this interchangeability
differently. Friedman, for example, sees it as a narrative convenience
designed to “excuse Christ’s hasty remarriage and
hastier adultery” and imply the “self-serving” version
of what constitutes a “normal” existence.68 On the
other hand, Medhurst reads the scene as playing out the Oedipal
complex in which Jesus transfers his love for his mother to other
mother substitutes (i.e., all the Marys) in order to gain his
own identity. From this perspective, there is truly only one
woman in the world–the mother.69 As such, Medhurst interprets
Scorsese’s film as an allegorical account “structured
by a complex calculus of myth, metaphor, and sign.” Furthermore,
Medhurst argues that Scorsese’s Christ is Everyman, “a
metaphor for universal humanity in both its ontological and psychological
dimensions.”70 However, readings such as Medhurst’s
call attention to a critical oversight when thinking about the
film. A film that purports to offer a vision of “universal
humanity” fails when it reproduces the conflated version
of Magdalene. In fact, it serves patriarchal discourses that
shape social arrangements that deny women’s full humanity.
[24] The final scene in The Last Temptation of Christ imprisons
Magdalene in the eternal flicker of celluloid that resonates
in popular culture’s collective consciousness. In a brief,
final close-up of Magdalene’s face, she reveals her understanding
of what has transpired. Dressed in black, her face is washed
by a peaceful calm that stands in stark contrast to the wailing
grief displayed by the other women or the disbelief and silence
etched on the faces of the men who remained. While this moment
could launch the real story of Magdalene, the apostle of the
apostles, instead she remains in the background, silent and buried
within the patriarchal ideologies that have ravaged her in word
and art.
Conclusion: (Re)Presenting Magdalene
[25] By disregarding the existing scholarship that refutes the
image of Magdalene as a prostitute or failing to contemplate
her agency outside of the connotations of this image, Scorsese’s TheLast
Temptation of Christ codifies the historical inaccuracy enacted
by Pope Gregory in 591 in the twentieth/twenty-first-century
imagination. This codification remains more disturbing in light
of both Scorsese’s artistic and thematic goals. While he
was willing to take creative and financial risks to get this
film made, to portray a complex Jesus, full of human foibles
that might “provide a spiritual awakening for people,”71
he did not provide Magdalene’s character the opportunity
to emerge from the Madonna/whore ideology that has shaped traditional
Christianity. Thus, the Scorsese/Hershey Magdalene maintains
what Judith Butler chronicles as the fantasy binary distinctions
ascribed to male/female, body/mind, Madonna/whore, Mary/Eve that
both naturalize women’s inferiority and subvert their agency.72
Even in his attempt to open up the viewer’s minds to (re)consider
Jesus and the scriptures, Scorsese’s vision sacrifices
any consideration of Magdalene’s apostolic authority and
leadership, reinscribing the male as the universal subject. Furthermore,
this choice remains more problematic given the historical ramifications
of demonizing women’s bodies and the stigma that still
remains for women “who show too much, say too much, know
too much, and do too much,” regardless of their social
reality as wives, lovers, mothers, daughters, or any other “prototype
of the female condition.”73
[26] As the new millennium ushers Mary Magdalene back into
pop culture consciousness, there’s no guarantee that filmmakers
won’t be tempted to maintain what Schaberg describes as
the “harlotized” Magdalene that sells tickets:
The volatile figure of Mary Magdalene is far too big for Hollywood,
which sees her as a mix of lust, loyalty, belief, prostitution,
repentance, beauty, madness, sainthood. She is the liminal and
strange woman, silent, dominated by the great image of Jesus
crucified, resurrected. She symbolizes the belief that women
are made only deficiently in the image of God, and are ultimately
a symbol of evil and of dependent, sinful humanity.74
Thimmes is equally pessimistic about the power of contemporary
film to accurately portray Magdalene. To characterize Magdalene
as anything other than the conflated version means forsaking
the “sex sells” financial strategies that have historically
marked films such as Jesus Christ Superstar and The
Last Temptation of Christ: “Ironically, just as producer
Martin Scorsese’s much-maligned sex scene between Mary
Magdalene and Jesus occurs as a hallucination experienced by
Jesus as he suffers on the cross, one might say that the personas
Mary Magdalene is said to inhabit from the fourth century onward
in legend and piety are also hallucinations.”75 Therefore,
the question remains: How can this hallucination ever be made
cognizant within an enduring patriarchal system that would rather
distort, diminish, and erase Magdalene’s influence beyond
the archetype of women’s sin and redemption?
[27] The answer may reside in (re)presenting Mary Magdalene in
popular culture. In addition to the popularity of The
Da Vinci Code, which has sparked discussion and debate from
various perspectives, the efforts of feminist scholars such as
Brock, King, Jansen and Schaberg have started to trickle down
into pop culture, notably in documentary films that focus on
telling the “real story” behind Magdalene’s
reputation: Mary Magdalene: An Intimate Portrait (1995),
Biography’s Mary Magdalene: The Hidden Apostle (2000),
and Rediscovering Mary Magdalene: The Making of a Mythic Drama (2001).76
In fact, Amazon Books features a Mary Magdalene booklist and
other suggested readings for those who want to buy The Da
Vinci Code and The Last Temptation of Christ. Many
of these suggestions focus on more historically accurate portraits
of Magdalene in both scholarly and popular sources. Mainstream
magazines like Time have summarized some of the scholarly
accounts of Mary Magdalene that challenge her image as prostitute.77
Even Tori Amos: Piece by Piece (2005) features a chapter
entitled, “Mary Magdalene: The Erotic Muse,” which
focuses on telling “the greatest story never told.”78
This chapter chronicles Amos’ own research into the scholarship
on Magdalene that encourages people to “open up to the
Magdalene as a Being, not just as a demeaned prostitute.”79
Furthermore, these kinds of mainstream materials are prompting
people to search the Internet for more accurate information.
For example, Lesa Bellevie operates a Mary Magdalene website
that “celebrates the mysteries of the Woman Who Knew All” (Magdalene.org)
and keeps readers up-to-date on new resources about Magdalene
(popular and scholarly). After the success of her website (she
estimates 2000 visitors a day), she published The Complete
Idiot’s Guide to Mary Magdalene (2005) in an effort
to present the public more accurate information about Magdalene’s
legacy.80
[28] While filmmakers like Scorsese ultimately failed to reconcile
historical scholarship with the patriarchal paradigms that inform
their artistic visions, publications such as The Complete
Idiot’s Guide, The Da Vinci Code and related media
suggest that Magdalene scholarship will no longer remain sequestered
in dusty archives or buried in journals that few read. Instead,
the public may hold filmmakers and other media more accountable
for their portraits of historical religious women like Magdalene.
Rather than debating the controversial “sex scene” between
Magdalene and Jesus in films like The Last Temptation of Christ,
twenty-first century viewers, armed with historical knowledge
and a commitment to more legitimate images of spiritual women,
will confront the representations of Magdalene they witness on
screen. Rather than arguing how Ron Howard’s The Da
Vinci Code movie betrays the novel in some way, they might
question why even in a story that chronicles the patriarchal
power dynamics that tarnished Magdalene’s image, the film
is still all about him. Hopefully, The Da Vinci Code movie
marks a turning point for (re)presenting Magdalene. With the
infusion of scholarship into mainstream venues, audiences might
finally confront and resist the Magdalene misrepresentation burned
in their imagination.
They will demand more accurate portrayals, prompting
filmmakers to tell the “real” story of Magdalene.
As a result, Magdalene will finally receive her centuries-belated
makeover in the popular imagination, her 40-foot image, emancipated,
dancing across screens in darkened theaters, projecting the infinite
possibilities of our full humanity.
Notes
1. Pamela Thimmes, “Memory and Re-Vision: Mary Magdalene
Research Since 1975.” Currents in Research: Bibiblical
Studies 6 (1998): 193.
2. Ann Graham Brock, Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The
Struggle for Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2003), 11-12.
3. Karen L. King, “Myth and Mystery," Review of The
Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the
Christian Testament by Jane Schaberg, Women’s
Review of Books 23 (March 2003): 18.
4. Antti Marjanen, The Woman Jesus Loved: Mary Magdalene in
the Nag Hammadi Library and Related Documents (New York:
Brill, 1996), 1.
5. Marjanen, Woman, 2.
6. Jane Schaberg, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends,
Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New York: Continuum,
2003), 8.
7. Schaberg, Resurrection, 8.
8. Martin J. Medhurst, “Temptation as Taboo: A Psychorhetorical
Reading of The Last Temptation of Christ,” in David
Blakersey, ed., The Terministic Screen: Rhetorical Perspectives
on Film (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
2003), 55-69.
9. Gary Thompson, Rhetoric Through Media (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 1997), 344-45.
10. Jean Baudrillard, “The Masses: The Implosion of the
Social in the Media,” in Mark Poster, ed., Jean Baudrillard:
Selected Writings (Stanford, CA: Stanford, 1988), 217.
11. bell hooks, “Teaching Resistance: The Radical Politics
of Mass Media,” in Karen A. Foss, Sonja A. Foss, and Robert
Trapp, eds., Readings in Contemporary Rhetoric (Prospect
Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2002), 244.
12. Marjanen, Woman, 2-3.
13. David Ehrenstein, “Introduction,” The Last
Temptation of Christ, DVD, directed by Martin Scorsese
(Universal Pictures, Criterion Collection, 2000).
14. Schaberg, Resurrection, 66.
15. “Gospel of Mary,” in The Gnostic Gospels (New
York: Vintage Books, 1989), 15-17.
16. Gospel of Mary 17:7-14.
17. Brock, Mary Magdalene, 102.
18. Jane Schaberg, “How Mary Magdalene Became a Whore,” Bible
Review (1992): 37.
19. Mary R. Thompson, Mary of Magdala: Apostle and Leader (Mahwah,
NJ: Paulist, 1995), 14.
20. Katherine Ludwig Jansen, in Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela
J. Walker, "Maria Magdalena: Apostolorum Apostola," in
the Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of
Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998),
60.
21. King, “Myth and Mystery,” 18.
22. Schaberg, Resurrection, 99.
23. Ehrenstein, “Introduction,” 1.
24. Mary Pat Kelly, Martin Scorsese: A Journey (New York:
Thunder Mouth’s Press, 1996), 203.
25. Medhurst, “Temptation,” 55.
26. Ehrenstein, “Introduction,” 2.
27. Ehrenstein, “Introduction,” 2-3.
28. The Last Temptation of Christ (DVD; Universal Pictures,
Criterion Collection, 2000).
29. Lawrence S. Friedman, The Cinema of Martin Scorsese (New
York: Continuum, 1998), 153-55.
30. Last Temptation DVD.
31. Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans, Biblical Epics:
Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1993), 165.
32. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 205.
33. Marjanen, Woman, 4-5.
34. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 205.
35. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 205.
36. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 205.
37. P. Lemos, “Divine Duos.” Ms Magazine (January/February
1989): 126, 124.
38. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 224.
39. Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political
Economy’ of Sex,” in Rayna R. Reiter, ed., Toward
an Anthropology of Women(New York: Monthly Review Press,
1975), 157.
40. Schaberg, Resurrection, 106
41. Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women (New
York; Perigee, 1979), 200, 9.
42. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York/Oxford:
Oxford, 1986); Martha Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice (New
York/Oxford: Oxford, 1999).
43. D. Satz, “Markets in Women’s Sexual Labor,” Ethics 106
(1995): 78.
44. Satz, "Markets," 79.
45. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 206.
46. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 206.
47. Schaberg, Resurrection, 105.
48. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 225.
49. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 206.
50. Friedman, Cinema, 154.
51. Last Temptation DVD Commentary
52. Kelly,Martin Scorsese, 226.
53. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 225.
54. Richard Corliss, “Body and Blood: An Interview with
Martin Scorsese,” Film Comment (October 1988): 42.
55. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 226.
56. Last Temptation.
57. Last Temptation.
58. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 227.
59. Last Temptation.
60. Kelly, Martin Scorsese, 227.
61. Last Temptation.
62. Last Temptation.
63. Last Temptation.
64. Last Temptation.
65. Last Temptation.
66. Last Temptation.
67. Last Temptation.
68. Friedman, Cinema, 161.
69. Medhurst, “Temptation,” 59.
70. Medhurst, “Temptation, 57.
71. Kelly,Martin Scorsese, 202.
72. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion
of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999), xxi.
73. Gail Pheterson, The Prostitution Prism (Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 1996), 84, 55.
74. Schaberg, Resurrection, 8.
75. Thimmes, “Memory,” 194.
76. Mary Magdalene: An Intimate Portrait (VHS/ New
Video, 1995); Mary Magdalene: The Hidden Apostle (VHS;
A&E Home Video, 2000); Rediscovering
Mary Magdalene: The Making of a Mythic Drama (VHS, 2001).
77. David Van Biema and Lisa McLaughlin, “Mary Magdalene:
Saint or Sinner?” Time (August 11, 2003): 52-59.
78. Tori Amos and Ann Powers, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece (New
York: Broadway Books, 2005), 100.
79. Amos and Powers, Tori Amos, 59.
80. Lesa Bellevie, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Mary
Magdalene (New York: Alpha Press, 2005.
References
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by Mark Poster. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.
Bellevie, Lesa. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Mary Magdalene.
New York: Alpha Press, 2005.
Brock, Ann Graham. Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The
Struggle for Authority. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
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Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion
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Corliss, Richard. “Body and Blood: An Interview with Martin
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De Laurentis, Teresa. Alice Doesn’t: Feminism,
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Dworkin, Andrea. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New
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Satz, D. “Markets in Women’s Sexual Labor.” Ethics 106
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Schaberg, Jane “How Mary Magdalene Became a Whore.” Bible
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