The Passion of the Christ Six Years On

The Passion of the Christ Six Years On: What Happened? By Don Perlgut (Appeared in Metro Magazine , issue 164, April 2010) http://www.metromagazine.com.au/magazine/pdfs/M164-Contents.pdf

Introduction

Opening on 25 February 2004, Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ confounded numerous critics and observers by becoming one of the most successful films of all time, particularly in the USA. The film also arrived with enormous controversy about its antisemitic portrayals and excessive violence, and resulted in an extraordinary media storm. Almost six years on, what has happened? Why was the film not as successful in Australia as in the USA? Were fears that the film would encourage a rise in antisemitism justified? Does Hollywood provide more films for the Christian audience who embraced The Passion ? Where has the audience gone?

Antisemitism in The Passion of the Christ

Suggestions of antisemitism in the film were already well-documented as early as May 2003, with the widely reported Report of the Ad Hoc Scholars Group Reviewing the Script of ‘The Passion’. This group of four Catholic and three Jewish scholars was convened by specialists at the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Anti-Defamation League. 1 They provided a confidential analysis of a shooting script, which was only made public after the film’s release in 2004. In their report, the group unanimously concluded that the script had significant historical errors, the version of the script they read would promote antisemitic sentiments and the script violated many magisterial Catholic documents including several Vatican instructions.

The key charges of antisemitism in the final version of the film related to casting the Jews as villains and how the film ‘emphasises the role of the Jewish priests in arranging Jesus' arrest and shows their satisfaction as they watch the Roman torturers carry out the persecution and crucifixion … Gibson finally agreed to delete from the picture the most antisemitic phrase in the Bible - the notorious verse 27:25 of the Gospel of Matthew: "His blood be on us and on our people", a verse that, according to reputable biblical scholars, has no historical basis.’ 2

Jesus film scholar Adele Reinhartz asserts that ‘not only does Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ include all the problematic elements of the Gospel sources, but it also inserts extraneous elements that exacerbate the anti-Jewish potential of the Gospels’ account’, exaggerating the Jews’ role. 3 One widely quoted critic of antisemitism in the film is Leon Wieseltier, who wrote in The New Republic that: In its representation of its Jewish characters, ‘The Passion of the Christ’ is without any doubt an antisemitic movie, and anybody who says otherwise knows nothing, or chooses to know nothing, about the visual history of antisemitism, in art and in film. What is so shocking about Gibson's Jews is how unreconstructed they are in their stereotypical

appearances and actions. These are not merely antisemitic images; these are classically antisemitic images. 4

Almost every review of the film commented on antisemitism, with an interesting split of consensus: many political conservatives such Miranda Devine 5 insisted on denying that there were any antisemitic elements in the film, while almost all Jewish reviewers and progressive Catholic religious commentators noted these in detail. 6

The Controversy

The Passion of the Christ became the most controversial film of 2004, and for many commentators, the most controversial film of all time 7. As a result of the film’s success, Mel Gibson was included in Time magazine’s April 2004 list of ‘the 100 most powerful and influential people in the world’.8 Premiere magazine placed Mel Gibson number ten on its Hollywood ‘power list’ for 2004 (his highest placing ever), describing The Passion of the Christ as defining ‘the crucifixion for a generation’. The magazine also listed ‘Jesus’ as number 100 on its list for that year.9 Forbes magazine placed Gibson number one in its 2004 ‘Celebrity 100’ list, and he only dropped two places to number three in 2005. 10 The Religion Newswriters Association declared the release of The Passion of the Christ and the re-election of George W. Bush a tie as the most significant religion stories of 2004, but Gibson was declared the ‘Religion Newsmaker of the Year’, easily beating then President Bush. 11

In his notable study of controversial films, Kendall Phillips observes that the ability of The Passion to provoke passion in the audiences who both viewed it and chose not to see it was unlike anything he had seen before, going beyond the experience of The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988) because ‘there was no such counter-reaction from the other side … I know of no one who walked out of Scorsese’s film proclaiming that it had changed his or her life’.12

Audience Response

Numerous cultural critics did not like the film, but the audience response was overwhelming. The film had the third biggest box office in the North America (which includes both the USA and Canada) in 2004 (after Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2 ), totaling US$370,274,604, and making it then ‘the ninth biggest US film of all time’ although unadjusted for inflation/ticket prices. In North America, the film beat My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 2002) to become the most popular independent film, Matrix Reloaded (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 2003) to become the highest-grossing R-rated film, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000) to become the top subtitled film.13

The film was released the same day in Australia as in the USA, and in twelve weeks of theatrical distribution (seven weeks less than in the USA), the film grossed Aus$15,183,802. This amount was estimated by the film website moviemarshal.com.au to be fifty-nine per cent down on USA: based on the rule of thumb that Australian box office should be one tenth of USA box office an equivalent amount in Australia would have been about Aus$37,000,000. 14 Had it performed to

this expected level, it would have been the second highest grossing film in 2004 and the twelfth highest grossing film (unadjusted figures) in Australian history. Instead, it was no where near those figures. In other words, the film performed only to approximately 40 per cent of a standard expectation for Australia. While Gibson’s film was responsible for almost four per cent of the North American box office in 2004, the comparative figure for Australia was just under 1.7 per cent, a notable difference. 15

The phenomenon of The Passion was substantially although not exclusively an American one. Of the top twenty films of 2004 in worldwide box office returns, the average return outside of North America was almost fifty-seven per cent. However only two films that year – The Passion of the Christ and The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass, 2004) grossed less than forty per cent of their box office outside North America, well below the average. In other words, The Passion – despite its success, performed much better in the USA in particular. Even in Canada the film grossed thirty per cent less than should have been expected. 16

News, Critical and Scholarly Reaction

The Passion of the Christ burst into media headlines in large part because of the controversy about its antisemitic content. But there two were other controversies: the very high level of violence in the film, with particular attention to the detailed flailing of Jesus; and the debate about the interpretation of the various stories of the Bible, including the alleged literalism.

There was a virtual firestorm of discussion in the media for almost a year leading to the initial February 2004 release, and Mel Gibson willingly encouraged the media coverage. 17 The film became the cover story of Time , Newsweek , Vanity Fair, U.S. News and World Report and numerous other magazines. The New York Times set up a special section just to monitor breaking news on the film. New York Times columnist Frank Rich – who had had a public written slanging match with Gibson in the lead-up to release - called the year 2004 ‘The Year of The Passion ’. 18 Writing in The New Republic , Stanley Kauffman had to cast back to Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1938) for a comparison to the ‘pre-release buzz … (and) that was not an R-rated religious film with dialogue in Aramaic and Latin’.19

The reviews of The Passion of the Christ were decidedly mixed. Of 253 American reviews analysed by the rottentomatoes.com website, 128 were generally positive and 125 generally negative, with an average rating of 5.9/10.20 Australian reviews roughly approximated the American response. Of the thirty-nine mainstream press reviews of the film which I analysed, fourteen were positive, twelve were mixed and thirteen were negative. 21

The Passion also elicited a veritable firestorm of response from scholars in religion, the media, cultural studies and related fields, including special issues in the Journal of Religion and Film (even before the film had even opened in cinemas), the Journal of Religion and Society , the Society of Biblical Literature , Crosscurrents , Shofar and even Pastoral Psychology. By 2006, nine scholarly edited books had been published devoted solely to analysing the film. 22 The Harvard Business School was so fascinated by the film’s marketing campaign that it produced a

case study on it and did a related interview with Bob Berney, the President of Newmarket Films 23 .

Judaic Studies professor Matthew Hoffman explained why the film roused such anger and fear in the American Jewish community, noting that the controversy showed:

Jews are still afraid of Jesus, especially when Christians remind them that he is a key Christian figure … In a sense, the controversy … is the latest manifestation of Jews’ angst about Jesus and the role he plays in the public sphere, especially in the United States. After all, it is American Jews who are the most vociferous defenders of the separation of Church and state, because the day Jesus is hanging in American classrooms is the day that America is lost to Jews.24

Marketing and Audience Reception

The Passion of the Christ was not the first successful biblical film, nor was it the first successful one about Jesus. As early as 1927, the marketing of Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings was coordinated closely with local churches.25 The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956) still has the fifth best North American inflation-adjusted all-time box office, Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959) is thirteenth and The Robe (Henry Koster, 1953) sits at number forty-three. 26 Similarly, religious controversy was not invented with the release of The Passion of the Christ , but has a long history extending back throughout the Twentieth Century.

The clever film-maker operates from a finely-tuned intuitive base, and is able to capture our hopes, dreams, nightmares and concerns months if not years before we are consciously aware of them ourselves. Mel Gibson, the true auteur of The Passion of the Christ is one such film-maker. Gibson’s personality and profile, and his untiring willingness to promote the film were integral to the film’s marketing and part of its appeal. Discussion about the film always began with and never strayed far from mentioning its celebrity writer/director. Mel Gibson was once People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ 27 and has ‘a potent name and possessor of high charisma’.28

All of the newspaper cover stories, television news items and prime-time television news interviews provided a great deal more publicity value than any advertising could. 29 This combined with a well-tuned and brilliant grassroots marketing campaign included highly targeted screenings to friendly audiences of the ‘faithful’ and ‘A list’ testimonials. An essential element of the marketing success was Gibson’s willingness to promote the film to the core audience of evangelical Protestants and conservative commentators, as well as unashamedly engaging in the public controversy. 30 Paula Fredericksen describes it thus:

Gibson shone the light of his celebrity upon (evangelical) churches, asking humbly that they help him to spread the truth of the Gospel. He also positioned himself as a pious warrior pitted against secular, sinful – indeed anti-Christian – Hollywood. And he himself also crossed over, reinventing himself in the tropes of the born again … Gibson morphed into a Protestant-style pre-Vatican II Catholic. And amazingly, it worked. 31

The American audience which responded most enthusiastically to The Passion – evangelical Protestants - are a significant political force and very large in numbers – estimated to be one- quarter or more of all Americans. 32 By contrast, the estimated numbers of evangelical Christians in Australia – although undergoing reasonably rapid growth – are only a few per cent. 33

It is widely documented that the USA is an uncommonly religious country, both by world standards and in comparison with other developed countries. Australians (along with Western Europeans and other wealthy countries such as Japan) are significantly less religious than Americans. While forty-five per cent of respondents in the USA report attending church at least once a week, only seventeen per cent in Australia do; and while eighty-three per cent of Americans describe themselves as religious, only fifty-nine per cent of Australians do.34

The controversy over The Passion of the Christ clearly assisted in the film’s promotion and box office returns. But this controversy and the media storm which accompanied it appeared to be mostly an American phenomenon, with the media in Australia and most other countries generally reporting on the American controversy rather than creating their own. 35

There was substantial Australian interest in The Passion of the Christ , if for no other reason than the ‘Mel’ factor. During the controversy in the USA, the American Anti-Defamation League reportedly had far more inquiries from Australian journalists than from any other country.36 While coverage in Australia was extensive, it was consistently at a ‘remove’ about what was happening in the USA, with relatively little until early February 2004, only commencing in earnest just before the film’s release. Five key elements appear to have kept the controversy in Australia to a minimum:

- Although he lived a substantial part of his life in Australia, Mel Gibson did not visit during the film’s promotion and theatrical release, thereby depriving local media of a personality to interview.

- The leadership of the Australian Jewish community – possibly observing what happened in the USA - was generally unwilling to engage in a vigorous, pointed and detailed criticism of the film and its content. Nor did the controversy have the essential criteria (local angle, Israel focus) for mobilisation of the Jewish community in Australia. 37

- There were no Australian Jewish commentators – such as Michael Medved and Daniel Lapin who were willing to support Gibson, as there were in the USA.38

- Although a number of Australian commentators wrote and spoke favourably about the film, there were virtually no Christian commentators willing to promote the film by appealing to antisemitism or referencing the ‘culture wars’. In fact, some Australian Christian commentators seemed to have gone out of their way to avoid feeding the antisemitism controversy surrounding The Passion .39

- The Australian media was simply not interested in – or did not understand – the controversy over antisemitism in particular, sensing that the Australian public was not

concerned with such a conflict. This was probably due in part because of a different media structure, with fewer – and less powerful – niche and single-interest media outlets (such as Fox News) that were able to sustain constant coverage.

No Australian writer could come close to conservative American Catholic leader William Donohue, who said on radio that ‘Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? And I’m not afraid to say it. That’s why they hate this movie. It’s about Jesus Christ and it’s about the truth.’ 40

Impact of The Passion of the Christ

It is clear that The Passion was a major cultural event, which mobilised significant elements of American Catholic and evangelical Protestant constituencies in a new de facto alliance that has not ended its influence. The political – and box office - influence of evangelical Protestants is a uniquely American phenomenon, with little resonance outside of the USA.

The Passion of the Christ did not result in any particular increase in antisemitic behaviour in Australia, the USA or other countries with no apparent reported increases of antisemitic incidents, although it did give ‘permission’ at the time to many commentators in the USA especially to express antisemitic sentiments more openly, as a response to an ongoing ‘culture war’. 41 Adele Reinhartz writes that Jesus movies tend not ‘to stir up hostile feelings toward Jews that … might lead to physical violence’, but that they can ‘perpetuate certain beliefs, images and stereotypes that have been implicated in antisemitism’. 42

The Passion will certainly influence popular conceptions about Jesus for many years to come. Since the film’s release, it has become a major cultural reference touchstone, with images from the film in wide circulation. Media and religion expert Stuart Hoover observed in 2006 that ‘Much as The Ten Commandments florid visualizations of the Exodus story came to be the visual memory of those events for generations of Christians and Jews, so will The Passion ’s representation of The Passion become the standard visual memory for generations from here on out.’ 43

Images of the film remain strongly entrenched in popular consciousness and the media. In the lead-up to the visit by the Pope to Sydney for “World Youth Day” in July 2008, a number of articles kept referring to The Passion of the Christ . A page three article in the Sydney Morning Herald discussed who was chosen to play Jesus in a performance of the Stations of the Cross. Of the six large colour photos on the page, half of them were shots from The Passion of the Christ , comparing the actors from that film with the chosen actors in the Sydney staging. 44 Another article referred to how the scenes of the scourging of Jesus would not be as violent as those shown in the film 45 , and a front page article in The Australian Jewish News expressed concern that the Stations of the Cross would ‘be nothing like the recent Mel Gibson film’.46

The success of The Passion suggested that popular culture would have an increasing intersection with spiritual belief, but this has not necessarily played out in ways that commentators expected at first. In the months after the film’s initial release, expectations were high that religious-themed

entertainment would become increasingly popular. And in some cases, this took place, with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Andrew Adamson, 2005) achieving notable worldwide success. But that film’s religious messages were generally subtle and uncontroversial. No one anticipated one result would be success of films (and books) about the Catholic Church and spirituality that were not necessarily complimentary: the films of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons were not exactly what people had in mind when predicting that more religious themes would feature in mainstream film.

There have been sincere attempts to push a number of Biblical and Christian spiritual films into the mainstream cultural marketplace particularly in the USA, such as the establishment of FoxFaith. But the success of these ventures has been spotty at best. The failure of the television movie Judas (Charles Robert Carner, 2004) and The Nativity Story (Catherine Hardwicke, 2006) prompted Hillary Warner to observe that ‘Following The Passion … hasn’t been easy and Hollywood is learning that it’s not just a matter of putting God in (films). Viewers want interesting plots’.47

Media and religion scholar Stewart Hoover confirms that The Passion resulted in an increased interest in religious products for Hollywood, but ‘media culture operates according to its own logics with a certain elasticity’. He observes that ‘there is a destabilization in the category of “the religious” in media audience terms’ and ‘the media marketplace provides media products in trajectories that ... combine interests and values’.48 In other words, the apparent and powerful impact of the film quickly seemed to fade, with its component media impacts dissipating into different directions. It was, as some would call it, a ‘non-recurring phenomenon’.

The Passion ’s influence also has not been sustained in part because of the actions – and inaction – of Mel Gibson. There is no doubt that Gibson lost substantial moral authority in his July 2006 Malibu drunk driving incident. His antisemitic statements undercut – for all but the most devoted believers – his denials of antisemitism in 2003 and 2004. Although Gibson’s 2006 film Apocalypto is very accomplished, Gibson has not otherwise leveraged his substantial wealth, power and influence to undertake new projects that built on the success of The Passion . Unlike Steven Spielberg and a number of other film-makers and entertainers, he has not become involved in visible charitable works.

The Passion of the Christ defined a certain ‘cultural moment’ as a result of its impact, not only in the USA but around the world. In cinematic terms, this moment was significant, and the film remains one of the most notable film events of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Although that moment was significant, the ongoing impacts do not appear to have lived up to the same promise. The Passion was very much a film of its particular point in time – the year 2004. But within two years, enough social, political and cultural change had occurred to reduce that impact. A continued shift in American politics – culminating with the November 2008 election of a liberal Democratic President, Barack Obama – was only part of this movement.

About the author:

Don Perlgut is a film critic for the Australian Jewish News and is completing a PhD on film and television distribution in the Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University.

Contact details: Don Perlgut, PO Box 155, Roseville NSW 2069; email [email protected]

1 Dr Mary C. Boys, Dr Michael J. Cook, Dr Phillip A. Cunningham, Dr Eugene J. Fisher, Dr Paula Fredriksen, Rev Dr Lawrence E. Frizzsell,; Rabbi Dr Eugene Korn, Dr Amy-Jill Levine, and Dr John T. Pawlikowski, Report of the Ad Hoc Scholars Group Reviewing the Script of ‘The Passion’ , May 2003. Available from http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta- elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/reviews/Passion_adhoc_report_2May.pdf , accessed 18 October 2009. 2 Pamela Grace, ‘Sacred savagery: The Passion of the Christ ’, Cineaste , vol. 29, no. 3, summer 2004, pp. 13-18. 3 Adele Reinhartz, Jesus of Hollywood . Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2007, p. 248. 4 Leon Wieseltier, ‘The Worship of Blood’, The New Republic , March 8, 2004. http://www.tnr.com/article/the-worship-blood , accessed 18 October 2009. 5 Miranda Devine, ‘Christians the most eager to cast stones’, The Sydney Morning Herald , February 26, 2004, p. 17. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/25/1077676839227.html , accessed 18 October 2009. 6 Jan Epstein, ‘Passion downside – “cruelty, inaccuracy, anti-semitism”’, The Catholic Weekly Online , 14 March 2004. http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/04/mar/14/26.html , accessed 1 July 2008. John Dominic Crossan, ‘Jewish Crowd and Roman Governor’, in Timothy Beal and Tod Linafelt (eds), Mel Gibson's Bible: Religion, Popular Culture, and the Passion of the Christ . University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 59-67. 7 ‘The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever’, Entertainment Weekly , June 9, 2006. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1202640,00.html , accessed 28 September 2009. Jorge J.E. Garcia, ‘Preface: Philosophy Confronts The Passion ,’ in Jorge J.E. Garcia (ed), Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion’ and Philosophy: The Cross, the Questions, the Controversy . Open Court, Chicago and La Salle, pp. ix. Box Office Mojo, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=controversy.htm , accessed 28 September 2009. David Gates, ‘Jesus Christ Movie Star’, Newsweek , March 8, 2004. http://www.newsweek.com/id/53327 , accessed 28 September 2009. 8 Jerry B. Jenkins, ‘Mel Gibson’, Time magazine, April 26, 2004. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,994042,00.html , accessed 28 September 2009. 9 http://www.premiere.com/features/1626/power-list-2004-page2.html, accessed 20 September 2008. 10 Forbes magazine Celebrity 100 Special Report, June 18, 2004 http://www.forbes.com/celebrities/2004/06/16/celebs04land.html and Forbes magazine Celebrity

100 Special Report, June 15, 2005 http://www.forbes.com/2005/06/15/05celebrityland.html , accessed 28 September 2009. 11 Religion Newswriters Association ‘Gibson's Passion and Re-election of President Bush tie as top religion stories for 2004’, December 15, 2004. http://www.rna.org/pr_041215top10.php , accessed 31 October 2008. 12 Kendall R. Phillips, Controversial Cinema: The Films that Outraged America . Praeger, London & Westport, Connecticut, 2008, p. 29. 13 John Quelch, Anita Elberse and Anna Harrington, The Passion of the Christ. Case Study 9- 505-025 & 9-505-026, February 23, 2005. Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 14 http://www.moviemarshal.com.au/id-passionofthechrist.html , accessed 28 September 2009. David Dale, ‘Tribal Mind: Seer Genius’, The Sydney Morning Herald , June 19-20, 2004, Forty- eight hours, p. 10. David Dale, ‘In film, it’s not independence day yet’, The Sydney Morning Herald , May 19, 2008, p. 16. 15 http://www.moviemarshal.com.au/openaus2004.html , accessed 28 September 2009 and http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2004&p=.htm , accessed 28 September 2009. 16 Peter T. Chattaway, ‘ Passion sets records, wins converts’, CanadianChristianity.com, March 31, 2004. http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/040331passion , accessed 28 September 2009. Peter T. Chattaway, ‘Canadian Box Office Stats’, Arts & Faith, July 11, 2004. http://artsandfaith.com//index.php?showtopic=3066 accessed 28 September 2009. 17 Peter J. Boyer, ‘The Jesus War’, The New Yorker , September 15, 2003, p. 58. Chris Noxon (2004) ‘Mad Mel’, Salon.com, February 18, 2004. http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/feature/2004/02/18/gibson/index.html , accessed 28 September 2009. 18 Frank Rich, ‘Mel Gibson’s Martyrdom Complex’, The New York Times , August 3, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/movies/mel-gibson-s-martyrdom-complex.html , accessed 28 September 2009. Frank Rich, ‘The Pope's Thumbs Up For Gibson's Passion ', The New York Times , January 18, 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/movies/the-pope-s-thumbs-up-for-gibson-s- passion.html , accessed 28 September 2009. 19 Thomas Hibbs, ‘The Horror & The Passion : Evil and redemption at the box office’, National Review , April 9, 2004. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWU0NDIwMTMzNTA5YjA5NmJiMGIxOGE2NDk5Yz FkM2U , accessed 28 September 2009. 20 http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/passion_of_the_christ/?critic=columns , accessed 28 September 2009. Also see http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/passionofthechrist/ , accessed 28 September 2009. 21 Don Perlgut, The Making of a Cultural Moment: Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion’ Goes to the Movies . Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, forthcoming 2010. 22 ibid. 23 Quelch et al , op. cit.

24 Matthew Hoffman, From Rebel to Rabbi: Reclaiming Jesus and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture . Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, California, p. 256. 25 Peter A. Maresco, ‘Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ : Market Segmentation, Mass Marketing and Promotion, and the Internet’, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture , vol. 8, Fall 2004. http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art8-melgibsonmarketing.html , accessed 28 September 2009. Richard Maltby, ‘ The King of Kings and the Czar of All the Rushes,” Screen , vol. 31, issue 2, 1990, pp. 188-213. 26 http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm , accessed 28 September 2009. 27 Adrian Martin, The Mad Max Movies . Currency Press, Sydney, 2003, p. 99. 28 Brian McFarlane, ‘Mel Gibson’s passion and The Passion of the Christ ’, Metro Magazine , no. 140, spring 2004, p. 18. 29 Pamela Grace, ‘Sacred savagery: The Passion of the Christ ’, Cineaste , vol. 29, no. 3, Summer 2004, pp. 13-18. 30 Deborah Caldwell, ‘Selling Passion ,’ in Jonathan Burnham (ed) Perspectives on ‘The Passion of the Christ’: Religious Thinkers and Writers Explore the Issues Raised by the Controversial Movie , Miramax Books, New York, pp. 211-224. 31 Paula Frederiksen, ‘No Pain, No Gain?’, in Timothy Beal and Tod Linafelt (eds), Mel Gibson's Bible: Religion, Popular Culture, and the Passion of the Christ . University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 97. 32 Caldwell, op. cit., p. 215. Susan George, Hijacking America: How the Religious and Secular Right Changed What Americans Think . Polity Press, Cambridge, 2008, pp. 103-105. 33 Gary Bouma, Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality in the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2006, p. 74. 34 Rodney Tiffen and Ross Gittins, How Australia Compares . Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 240. 35 Michael McKenna ’”Grotesque” violence divides film critics’, The Courier Mail , February 26, 2004, p. 9. Bob Longino, ‘Power of The Passion ’, Newcastle Herald , February 21, 2004, p. 31. ABC Radio The World Today February 19, 2004, Leigh Sales reporting from the USA. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2004/s1048961.htm , accessed 28 September 2009. 36 Personal communication, Myrna Shinbaum, Director Media Relations & Public Information, Anti-Defamation League, New York, 16 October 2008. 37 Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Philip Mendes, ‘The Hanan Ashrawi Affair: Australian Jewish Politics on Display’, in Geoffrey Brahm Levey & Philip Mendes (eds.), Jews and Australian Politics , Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 2004, p. 224. 38 Michael Medved, ‘ The Passion and Prejudice: Why I asked the Anti-Defamation League to give Mel Gibson a break’, Christianity Today , March 2004, vol. 48, no. 3, p. 38. http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/2004/passion-prejudice.html , accessed 18 May 2008. Rabbi Daniel Lapin, ‘The Dividers: The Passion’s Critics Fail’, National Review Online , February 25, 2004. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lapin200402250902.asp , accessed 28 September 2009.

Mark Silk, ‘Almost a Culture War: The Making of The Passion Controversy’, in J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum (eds) After The Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences , Altamira Press, Lanham, Maryland, 2004, pp. 29-32. 39 David Schutz, ‘Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ : a contemporary masterpiece,’ AD2000 , vol. 17, no. 3, April 2004, p. 8. http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2004/apr2004p8_1585.html , accessed 28 September 2009. 40 Quoted on Pat Buchanan, Scarborough Fair Radio show, 15 December 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6685898/ , accessed 28 September 2009. Bill Berkowitz, ‘Bill Donohue's Jewish Problem: Promoting Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ , Catholic League head claims secular Jews run Hollywood and ‘Hollywood likes anal sex”’, Dissident Voice , December 24, 2004. http://dissidentvoice.org/Dec2004/Berkowitz1224.htm, accessed 28 September 2009. 41 Joseph A. Varacalli, ‘Gibson’s Passion and the American Culture War’, The Catholic Social Science Review , vol. 10, pp. 173-180. http://www.catholicsocialscientists.org/CSSR/Archival/2005/Varacalli_173-180.pdf , accessed 28 September 2009. James Jaeger, ‘Hollywood's True Agenda: Mel Gibson and the Culture War’, Jewish Tribal Review , 2004. http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/jaeger6.htm , accessed 28 September 2009. 42 Adele Reinhartz, op. cit., p. 249. 43 Stewart M. Hoover, Religion in the Media Age , Routledge, London, 2006, p. 65. 44 Bellinda Kontominas, ‘Jesus of Homebush: the greatest story told Down Under’, Sydney Morning Herald , March 31, 2008, p. 3. 45 Linda Morris, ‘Cross to bear: harbour, son and holy host’, Sydney Morning Herald , June 21, 2008, p. 6. 46 Lexi Landsman, ‘Concerns remain over crucifixion re-enactment’, The Australian Jewish News, June 27, 2008, p. 1. 47 Hillary Warner, There's Never Been a Show Like Veggie Tales: Sacred Messages in a Secular Market . Rowan Altamira, Lanham, Maryland, 2005, p. 3. 48 Stewart M. Hoover, ‘Audiences’, in David Morgan (ed), Key Words in Religion, Media and Culture , Routledge, New York and London, 2008, p. 43.