Konsekvenser av att fresta Jesus : En undersökning av receptionen av The Last Temptation of Christ och The First Temptation of Christ.

Religion in popular culture has the power to evoke strong feelings and reactions, especially if someone feels offended by it. Jesus is a person with grave importance for many, since many people in the world are Christians. However, there is not a lot that can be said with certainty about the historical person Jesus. This uncertainty leaves room for interpretation and creative freedom, which gives origin to art centered around Jesus’ life. This essay aims to examine the reactions to two different Jesus films: The Last Temptation of Christ from 1988 and The First Temptation of Christ from 2019. The purpose of the study is to explore possibilities of interpretation, similarities, and differences in the reception of these films through a study of newspaper articles, user reviews and journalistic reviews of both the films. The material used are user reviews from the website IMDb, reviews aimed at catholic readers, reviews for newspapers, reviews for websites specifically for movie reviews and newspaper articles about reactions to the two films. The material has been compared and analyzed through a description of reception research. Previous studies related to the subject of the essay includes research about religion and popular culture, religion in film, Jesus in film and research about reception and reviews. These books, essays, and dissertations include studies of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ, but not of The First Temptation of Christ. The films differ in a lot of ways: genre, language, the makers objective, and time of release. These differences make up obstacles in comparing the reception of the films, but despite this several similarities have been found. The results of the study are presented thematically; first with a presentation of the articles and reviews of The Last Temptation of Christ, then with a similar presentation of The First Temptation of Christ. After these presentations, the conclusions about similarities and differences in the reception are given followed by an analysis in which the reactions are understood to be either a dominant, negotiating or opposing interpretation of the respective film. It can be seen in the results that there are similarities in the user reviews on IMDb, where high ratings correspond to a dominant interpretation and low ratings correspond to an oppositional interpretation. Also, similarities have become apparent in the reactions of Christian critics, protesters, and religious leaders. In the concluding part I reflect about the didactic value of the essay and its material, then I reflect on the essay itself and the process of working with it