There’s been a lot of “talk”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26264-2003Jul22.html lately about Mel Gibson’s movie about the death of Jesus. The “New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/national/02GIBS.html?hp reports that Gibson has shown “The Passion” to:

bq. friendly audiences, but has refused to show it to his critics, including members of Jewish groups and biblical scholars. In Washington, it was shown to the Web gossip Matt Drudge, the columnists Cal Thomas and Peggy Noonan and the staffs of the Senate Republican Conference and the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and others. In Colorado Springs, the capital of evangelical America, the film drew raves. A convention of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative Roman Catholic order of priests, saw a preview, as did Rush Limbaugh.

Why is it that no Jews seem to have seen this movie? (Do correct me here if I’m wrong.) Gibson’s people won’t show it to the “Anti-Defamation League”:http://www.adl.org/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=10&EXTRA_ARG=&CFGNAME=MssFind%2Ecfg&host_id=42&page_id=12845568&query=mel+gibson&hiword=gibson+GIBSONS+mel+. The Times quotes the marketing director for the film as saying: “There is no way on God’s green earth . . . that any of those people will be invited to a screening. They have shown themselves to be dishonorable.” So the obvious question is: why doesn’t Gibson show the movie to some “honorable” Jews? Seems like he’s shown it to just about eveyone else.

bq. Update: I’m corrected already. “Matt Drudge”:http://www.msnbc.com/news/942575.asp is Jewish, and he liked the film. Somehow, that doesn’t allay my concerns.