MEL GIBSON: FEMINIST? Over the

MEL GIBSON: FEMINIST? Over the weekend, I mentioned to my wife that somebody could make a pretty good case that The Passion has a feminist slant to it–some of the strongest characters in the film are women: the two Marys, Pilate’s Claudia, and Veronica, the woman who wipes Christ’s face on His way to the crucifixion. (She’s played by an actress who looks a bit like Sofia Coppola, but I can’t find her name in any searches. Any clues, folks?)

Via this Blog (via Technorati), I discovered that Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online has written just such an article.

(I’m not sure what to make the film’s androgynous Satan, who looks like a cross between Marilyn Manson and Sinead O’Connor, and is played by this striking looking Italian actress who went the Persis Khambatta route, and shaved her head for the role. Did Mel intend for the devil to be a woman–or merely of indeterminate gender?)