(Magillas Lester) Purim Parody Play Perversion

If you live in a frum neighborhood, you have probably been inundated with advertisements for the new animated movie titled Megillas Lester.

Megillas Lester is over an hour in length, and features a talented crew who re-create a parodied version of the Purim events. Whereas Mordechai HaTzadik and Queen Esther are the protaganists of the Megilla, here we find a boy who after messing up the sequence of events, must figure out how to save the Jewish People from the evil Haman.

While the director and film crew have certainly raised the bar for Jewish entertainment, mimicking Disney, I questioned whether children who see this film will come away with a distorted view of what really took place in Shushan.

Much effort was taken to depict Shushan as it actually was by using Rabbi Yehuda Landy's fascinating work on Ancient Persia. Much effort was taken to extract from the Megilla and the Medrash as many details as possible. Yet all this was perhaps for naught, as children will be unable to differentiate fact from fiction.

One website used a guesstimate that half a million dollars was budgeted to create this picture. There is much genius inherent in the film, many cute puns and much word-play which make watching it enjoyable for adults also. My favorite moment is when Zeresh calls all her children - in one breath.

Yet there have already been calls for a ban. As the film "denigrates and makes profane the holy". While I agree that this film warrants parental guidance, there still ought to be some license to create parodies, especially Purim time, as there has been a long tradition of "Purim Rav's" and "Purim Shpiels".

Consult your LOR.