Corpus Christi Movie Features a Gay Jesus-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
This email encourages people to add their names to the bottom of a list and circulate it sort of like a petition around the Internet. It’s designed to protest a movie that is described as coming out in 2001 which says that Jesus and his disciples were gay. It says the movie has been successfully banned in some European countries.
Update 2/27/14 New motion picture production of the Terrence McNally stage play expected to be release July or August.
Update 4/14/12 Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption – Documentary screening date released.
Update 6/21/10 Growing concerns about a gay Jesus film in production called, “Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption.”
Update 5/11/01: There is a new version of this eRumor circulating that says the name of the movie is going to be Corpus Christi, the same name as a play about a gay Jesus.
The Truth:
There was no movie release featuring a gay Jesus or gay disciples based on the stage play written by Terrence McNally called “Corpus Christi.”
There was a movie production called Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption but it is a documentary about the play, according to the spokesperson for the company that produces the stage play, 108 Productions. There were special screenings of the documentary on April 29, 2012 in San Francisco, CA.
Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption is about the play Corpus Christi and its reception with comments from audience, supporters and protesters.
In 2006 the play “resurrected,” according to the 108 Productions web site and began touring again. In 2010 the stage play appeared mostly throughout California in North Hollywood, San Francisco, Berkeley, Ojai, and Orange County. There was recent performance in Dallas, Texas in early June, which lasted two days.
The 2001 eRumor appeared to be a new, Internet version of a older rumor we investigated in 1986 when an article in a magazine in the state of Illinois in the United States claimed such a film was being proposed. The movie project was authentic, but never got off the ground. A rumor about the movie was circulated far and wide, however, and multitudes of letters were received by an Illinois state agency which, for some reason, became the focus of the protest. The movie never had anything to do with Illinois but had merely been mentioned in a publication from Illinois. The rumor as it is appeared on the Net was very weak, lacking specific information as to who was producing the movie or where anyone could write to effectively protest it. to who was producing the movie or where anyone could write to effectively protest it.
Additionally, the encouragement to add a name to the list and forward the email is useless. Who is going to send the final version and to whom?
The stage play has created controversy wherever it was presented. It featured a lead character with the name Joshua, which is a variation of the name Jesus. In the play, Joshua is a young gay man who fled form his home town of Corpus Christi, Texas, because of persecution over being homosexual. He returns, assembles a group of disciples, with whom he has sex, faces violent opposition, is betrayed by his friend Judas, and is crucified.
According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) there was a film that was released in 1997 by the title of “Corpus Christi” but it was not based on the McNally stage play but it was, in fact, a French documentary on Jesus that featured interviews of scientists, theologians and archeologists. Click for IMDB report.
Posted 5/1/01 Updated 02/27/14