Within the past few years, the late King of Pop’s daughter, Paris Jackson, has started to embrace her familial celebrity status by taking on more acting roles. The 22-year-old’s next project, Habit, was sure to become controversial since she’ll be channeling Jesus by donning tousled waves, a traditional robe and all for the flick co-starring Bella Thorne. A petition is now being spread around to prevent its distribution, and a ton of people have already signed it.
The petition calls Habit a “blasphemous Hollywood film” that will depict Jesus as a lesbian woman by one organizer on Change.org, and close to 300,000 people have signed it. The movie will apparently follow a “party girl with a Jesus fetish” who ends up getting mixed up in a drug deal that goes violent. The party girl will be played by Bella Thorne, who will masquerade as a nun in order to get tied out of the situation. It’s said to be inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s early work.
According to the petition, Paris Jackson’s Jesus will be a lesbian woman with a nose ring. Habit is a small independent film that has yet to find a distributor, and the organizers are looking to block any deal being made, specifically targeting Warner Bros and Lionsgate for an unknown reason. The film was characterized as “Christianophobic garbage,” and those signing the petition are calling Habit “offensive” and “disgusting.”
The depiction of Jesus on screen has spewed controversy for decades upon decades, most recently with the Netflix comedy Christmas special The First Temptation of Christ, which had Jesus being characterized as a gay man and Mary a weed smoker. The First Temptation of Christ left a lot of subscribers offended by the content, although the satire remains on the streaming service.
Suki Kaiser, who has previously written for Syfy’s Van Helsing and worked as an actress since the ‘90s, wrote Habit. It was helmed by first-time director Janell Shirtcliff and features one producer from 2017’s four-time Oscar nominee Mudbound. It might not help the film’s good graces from the angered Christian community that Bella Thorne has been enamored in directing porn following her beginnings in Disney Channel films.
Paris Jackson has just started her acting career back in 2017 with appearances in Star, an episode of Scream: The TV Series, a film called Gringo with Charlize Theron and David Oyelowo, and the upcoming music business drama The Space Between. Jackson has been open about her bisexuality for many years – she came out when she was 14 years old and has not shied away from being proud of her identity.
We’ll have to see how the release of Habit shakes out with all the heat it's been receiving. Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more movie news.
