Though snubbed by Hollywood, The Passion is still the People's Choice.

Despite vicious attacks from media critics and conspicuous snubs from Hollywood insiders, Mel Gibson and his enormously successful film, The Passion of the Christ, received more vindication at the 31st annual People's Choice Awards on January 9. The Passion won the People's Choice Award for best motion picture drama for 2004. It may end up being the only major award the film receives, since the movie industry, which is notoriously left wing and anti-Christian, has gone to great lengths to sabotage and stiff-arm the picture. In what is one of the most blatant examples of artistic censorship, Gibson and The Passion were almost completely shut out of the various awards programs held in January (the Golden Globes, the Directors Guild, and the Producers Guild) and were not even mentioned by most major media critics in their annual "Top 10 Movies" lists. They are expected to be shut out of Hollywood's ultimate awards spectacle, the Academy Awards (the "Oscars"), as well. The one exception to this industry ostracism has been a nomination by the American Society of Cinematographers for Passion cameraman Caleb Deschanel.

Gibson's proposal to make a grippingly realistic and reverent film about the final hours in the life of Jesus Christ, including His brutal scourging and crucifixion, was rejected by every studio. Undaunted, Gibson produced the film independently, putting up $30 million of his own money to fund the project. While still in the filming process, Gibson and The Passion were subjected to a nonstop campaign of malicious attacks, principally involving charges that the film is anti-Semitic. Despite these handicaps, Gibson's profoundly moving and artistically stunning movie has set box office records and taken in more than $600 million internationally.