Most view ‘The Passion of the Christ’ positively
NASHVILLE (AP) — Fifty-seven percent of Tennesseans have a positive opinion about Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” and 60 percent said it wouldn’t make others anti-Semitic, a poll conducted by Middle Tennessee State University found.
Sixty-four percent of self-described Evangelicals had a favorable opinion of the film while 22 percent said they didn’t know how they felt about it. Forty-four percent of non-Evangelicals had a positive opinion of the movie and 28 percent said they didn’t know.
Only about 3 percent of the poll’s respondents had actually seen the film that portrays the last 12 hours of Christ’s life.
“To me, the most surprising finding was that publicity increased awareness of the film but didn’t change anyone’s mind about it,” Robert Wyatt, a professor of journalism and director of communication research at MTSU in Murfreesboro, said Monday. “The audience interpreted the publicity to confirm their own pre-dispositions.”
The poll questioned 701 Tennessee residents at random. The telephone survey was conducted Feb. 16-28 in the afternoon and evening in an effort to include people who work outside the home.
The margin of error is plus- or minus-4 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. That means the sample size should produce an accurate snapshot of the state’s opinion within 4 percentage points 95 times out of 100.
“We’re confident that we have a scientific random sample,” Wyatt said. “What we don’t have are any self-identified Jewish respondents in the survey.”
A 1998 study by the University of Chicago said Jews comprised 3.3 percent of the nation’s population. The current size of the Jewish population in Tennessee isn’t known but is believed to be less than the nationwide level, Wyatt said.
Sixty percent of the respondents said the movie would not spark anti-Jewish feelings in others and 28 percent said they didn’t know. Only 12 percent said the movie would make others more anti-Jewish.
Thirty-seven percent said the film blames the death of Jesus on “all humanity” and 34 percent said they didn’t know. Sixteen percent said the movie blames Jews and 9 percent said it spreads the blame equally among Jews and Romans. Three percent said the film blames the Romans exclusively.
The “all humanity” response was most popular among Evangelicals, which represent 69 percent of Tennessee’s population compared with 32 percent nationwide.
That’s the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, adopted at the Second Vatican Council more than 40 years ago.
Gibson, who made the film with $25 million of his own money and directed it, belongs to a group of “traditionalist” Catholics who do not accept the views of that Vatican Council.
Respondents who have a favorable opinion of “The Passion of the Christ” were more likely to say that the Holocaust happened, the survey found.
Eighty-seven percent of Tennesseans who have a favorable opinion of Gibson’s movie said the Nazis killed six million Jews in Europe during World War II.
The percentage of people who said the Holocaust happened dropped to 65 percent among those who have no opinion or an unfavorable opinion of the movie.
Among those who liked the movie, blacks were more likely than whites to doubt the Holocaust. Among those who disliked the movie, doubt about the Holocaust is most common among the poorly educated, the poll found.
Having Jewish friends made some difference in how people reacted to the movie, but 54 percent of Tennesseans said they had no Jewish friends.
Among those with Jewish friends, 19 percent said they felt their Jewish friends would have a “very” or “somewhat favorable” opinion of the film and 32 percent said their friends’ reaction would be mixed.
Twelve percent said they believed their Jewish friends would have “somewhat” or “very negative” attitude toward the film. Thirty-six percent said they didn’t know.
Seventeen percent of Tennesseans with Jewish friends said they believed the movie blames the Jews for Jesus’ death. Among those with no Jewish friends, 10 percent said the film blames Jews.
Among Tennessee residents with Jewish friends, 43 percent said that responsibility for Christ’s death rests with “all humanity.” Among those without Jewish friends, 37 percent said all humanity shares the blame for Jesus’ death, the survey found.
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