Watching "The Passion of the Christ"

I had refused to watch this film on the grounds that the explicit portrayal of extreme violence in the cinema is neither appropriate nor necessary. I argue that it does nothing for someone’s understanding of war, D-Day or the Normandy Landings to see the blood and guts flying in “Saving Private Ryan” (another film I refuse to watch). I found that “The Passion of the Christ” was not as violent as I had been lead to believe. I think that there are two reasons for this; firstly, I have read much, much worse, from the depictions of life on the Eastern Front in World War II in the works of Sven Hassel and Guy Sajer, some of which I read in my early teens, through to the appalling and detailed violence often found in the modern science-fiction of Iain M. Banks and Richard Morgan. Secondly, I had not taken into account western middle-class sensibilities, the aversion to and horror of physical violence that is prevalent in the West today. Most people find the violence objectionable per se; I merely object to its on-screen portrayal. The liberal use of blood in, and the explicit nature of, the scourging scene will prove too much for many Westerners to stomach. I confess that had there been screaming, that would have been too much for me at a much lower level of violence.