Gay Jesus Film Still Getting Complaints, Despite Not Existing

If you’re going to call for something to be banned, you’d think one of the first things you’d check is that what you want kept from susceptible eyes actually exists, or at the very least is  going to exist. However the BBFC has revealed that they’re still dealing with complaints – as they have for the last decade – asking them to ban a movie which depicts Jesus and his disciples as gay men.

One of the main problem with this is that no such movie exists.

The issue stems from persistent internet rumours that Terrence McNally’s controversial play, Corpus Christi, has been made into a movie. The play does indeed show Jesus and the Apostles as gay men living in modern-day Texas, and has faced protests at virtually every staging its ever had. Most recently a planned production in Greece was cancelled after violent protests ended with the theatre and producers deciding it was too dangerous to go ahead.

However, the play has never been made into a movie and there are no plans to. The closest it’s ever come is a documentary called Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption, which followed the staging of small LA production, which led to a US tour that eventually went to Corpus Christi, Texas, which doesn’t just share a name with the play, but is also McNally’s hometown. The film looked at the protests and reactions against the production, comparing the play’s message of universal love to the blind bigotry it’s been met with.

It is perhaps confusion over this documentary that’s led to a spike in complaints to the BBFC, although it has been a persistent hoax for years and a gay Jesus it the sort of subject that’s bound to inflame knee-jerk bigots who’d want something banned without even finding out what it’s really about (or if it exists).

BBFC senior examiner Craig Lapper commented: ‘I think it was a bit of an internet hoax several years ago, suggesting a film was being made of the play in which Jesus and his disciples were portrayed as homosexuals. I can remember replying to people concerned about this blasphemous film back in the late 1990s.

‘This year again, for whatever reason, there was another spike in people writing to us to insist that we ban this terrible, blasphemous film. We just had to write back and say “This film doesn’t exist.”‘