ABSTRACT
The February 2004 release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ was a major cultural event. Receiving a tremendous amount of advance publicity due to allegations of anti-Semitism as well as adulatory responses from conservative Christians, who were the first to see it, the film achieved more buzz before its release than any film in recent memory. However, many critics argue that Gibson's behavior before and after the film's release demonstrates that the film was more of a testimony to Gibson's own fundamentalist version of Christianity than to what many Christians believe to be the meaning of the doctrine attributed to Jesus Christ. Wasting little time in getting into its sadomasochism, the film begins with the temple guards arresting Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where they savagely beat him and take him to the Jewish high priest Caiaphas.
