FLASHBACK: Networks Excoriated ‘The Passion of the Christ’ as Inflammatory, Anti-Semitic #Political
As Christians around the globe prepare to celebrate Easter on Sunday, some will choose to rewatch Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. The movie, which came out 14 years ago on February 25, 2004, was a massive hit. It skyrocketed to a worldwide gross of $611 million. But to the journalists and hosts on ABC, CBS and NBC, it was a project to approach with skepticism and alarm.
On February 16, 2004, then-ABC host Diane Sawyer alerted viewers to just how controversial this movie was. In a primetime special, she warned, “The film that set off an explosion of debate, controversy, and feeling in America....And not only between Christians and Jews, but Christians and Christians, historians and scholars, true believers and secularists, and everyone who falls somewhere in between.”
In a 10th anniversary retrospective in 2014, Media Research Center Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham explained:
Sawyer reported Gibson’s film suggests “echoes, the critics say, of what were called ‘Passion plays,’ which through the ages, were used to inflame Christians against their Jewish neighbors. Ghettos were sacked, the Jewish populations terrorized.” (Sawyer didn’t relate that Passion plays are read or performed annually around the world in millions of Christian churches without outbursts of anti-Semitic violence.)
Sawyer talked to Peter Boyer of The New Yorker and pushed the idea that the film was bigoted: “The Anti-Defamation League expressed concern over whether it would portray the Jews as, quote, ‘bloodthirsty, sadistic, and money-hungry enemies of Jesus.’ You spoke to the head of the ADL. Did he think it was an anti-Semitic movie?”
As contrasted by the MRC’s Graham, The Da Vinci Code – a film that portrays the divinity of Christ as false – was far less controversial.
On March 22 2020, Passion star Jim Caviezel discussed the upcoming sequel to the film with Fox News:
"Mel Gibson is talking about doing a sequel to 'The Passion.' He's been working on it for a number of years. Where is it now?" asked [Fox Nation host Raymond] Arroyo.
"Fifth draft," revealed Caviezel. "It's going to be a masterpiece. It's gonna be the biggest film in world history, I believe it will be based on what I feel in my heart.
"It's so imperative in this time. These films can't be made now," he said, suggesting that the film industry overlooks biblical films. "The films they make are Marvel Comics movies. You'll see Superman. You won't see Jesus... I got to play the greatest superhero there ever was."
In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the sequel would be titled, "The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection."
If the first film is any indication, Gibson should expect extreme media hostility in the face of general audience excitement.
To read the original MRC study on The Passion, go here. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
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