← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Rudel
Thread ID: 9424 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-08-31
2003-08-31 07:10 | User Profile
20th Century Fox will not distribute 'Passion' after all. What a surprise.
[url=http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/113117p-102012c.html]Fox rebuffs Mel's 'Passion'[/url]
By RALPH R. ORTEGA DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Mel Gibson can't even get his pals at 20th Century Fox Studios to distribute his graphic and bloody movie about the last hours of Jesus Christ's life. Gibson's film company, Icon Productions, has been searching for a distributor to release "The Passion," which Jewish leaders say is anti-Semitic for its portrayal of Jews during the time of Christ's Crucifixion.
Film clips show hooded and cloaked Jews rejoicing as a battered and tortured Christ carries the Cross to his death.
Fox, which has a joint production deal with Icon, had the first option to distribute the controversial movie.
But the studio has decided to pass, a spokesman for News Corp., the studio's parent company, said yesterday.
"Fox wouldn't be involved," said the spokesman, explaining that Icon already had "a number of alternative distribution options it was pursuing."
New York Jewish leaders and two dozen protesters who rallied outside News Corp.'s Sixth Ave. office building yesterday cheered when Assemblyman Dov Hikind revealed that Fox was out.
Hikind (D-Brooklyn) warned other movie companies that "they should not distribute this film. This is unhealthy for Jews all over the world."
Several protesters holding signs that said "The Passion" was a "Lethal Weapon to Jews," worried that audiences would believe that Jews were to blame for the Crucifixion, and that misconceptions would lead to violence.
Shulamit Hawtof, a Jewish administrative assistant from Borough Park, Brooklyn, didn't even want the movie go direct to video.
"I would like to see it buried, frankly," she said.
Catholics, however, have noted that the Vatican has long said Jews aren't to blame for Jesus' death.
"Who does the Crucifixion? It's all the Romans!" said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, who showed up at the rally saying the film was "splendid" and that he was helping to promote it.
Originally published on August 29, 2003
2003-09-06 17:34 | User Profile
Why should Murdoch fear the jews? As his mother is jewish, by jewish law he is jewish too.