ABSTRACT
There has been a long tradition of adapting stories in the Bible to Hollywood screens, epitomizing how the sacred and the secular intersect. The post-studio Hollywood cinema in the 1950s and 1960s was signposted by the burgeoning array of religious epics. The rejuvenated effort of screen adaptation coincides with the propagation of user-generated media conduits and digitized fan networks, which alter the ways biblical stories are unfolded and consumed. This chapter examines how user participation, encapsulated in mashups, a popular form of user-generated creative materials, makes an intervention in adapting the “Passion” story. This chapter focuses on Mel Gibson’s Hollywood adaptation of the Gospels and its afterlives in the form of “mashups”, which diversify and destabilize Gibson’s vision of the Crucifixion in the context of participatory culture. This chapter resituates the adaptation of religious narratives in the contested terrain of user-oriented mediascapes.
