The Passion of the Christ in Australia: A controversy that did not happen

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, I discuss how the controversies over Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ unfolded in Australia. I review the Australian media coverage of the controversy, including the responses from Australian Christian and Jewish leaders. I argue that the Australian media would have been willing to create a media event from The Passion, as they had previously highlighted other recent Jewish controversies, such as that surrounding the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize. Nevertheless, the controversy did not take root in Australia as it lacked a sufficiently important local angle. The Australian Jewish community leadership was also unwilling to engage in detailed criticisms of the film and few Australian Christian commentators used antisemitic language in their discussions about the film. This lack of angry criticism by Australian Jewish community leaders was a deliberate strategy to avoid a similar situation to what happened in the United States. The structure of Australian media also meant that there were few single-interest media outlets (such as Fox News in the United States) that could sustain constant coverage.