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The Maricopa Community College District is fielding complaints after a professor showed clips from The Last Temptation of Christ -- a 1988 film by Martin Scorsese depicting Jesus struggling with human temptations -- during class, the Arizona Republic reports.
Gilbert residents Christine Accurso and Susan Hicks recently approached the district’s governing board, calling the film a “blasphemous video” and “slander.” The two were particularly upset about scene that shows Jesus fantasizing about having sex with Mary Magdalene. Neither Accurso nor Hicks attend Mesa Community College, but they learned about the video from a friend whose son who had previously taken the class.
Keith Crudup, a world religions professor at Mesa Community College, used the film to stimulate class discussion. At this time, college officials do not plan to require professors to warn students about the film, but the complaints did spark conversation about whether or not they should.
Advocates of warnings for potentially offensive or upsetting content, often called trigger warnings, say they help create safe spaces for students, while critics of the warnings, including the American Association for University Professors, believe the warnings infringe on academic freedom.
