ABSTRACT
In early 2004, religious leaders apprehensively debated on network news programs whether the then-unreleased film The Passion of the Christ-Mel Gibson’s depiction of the last hours of Jesus Christ and his crucifixionwould generate anti-Semitism among its audiences. A small group of protesters picketed outside a Manhattan, New York, movie theater when the film opened in late February (Patterson, 2004). Subsequent polls found mixed results as to whether their fears were well founded, with participants who had seen the film, and those who planned to, more likely to say that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ than those who had not seen it, although of course it is quite probable that these moviegoers already held that belief (The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2004).
