Who'da thunk two religious films would be voted most popular at the People's Choice Awards tonight? :^)

I'm speaking, of course, of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ.

In the case of the latter, it's literally a religious film. For the former, it's more about being a film for true believers.

(For a complete list of winners and CP coverage of the event, click on this CTV.ca story.)

It's eerie, in a way, because the two awards seem to encapsulate the divide in America today.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is for the secularhumanistleftypeaceniks (no time like the present to invent a new word, I say).

The Passion (which I must red-facedly confess to only knowing through reviews; I couldn't bring myself to enrich Mel by spending money on seeing it), is for vengeanceismineredmeatconservativeChristians.

9/11 was the most successful provokumentary (hey, maybe that really is a new word! -- Shit! No it isn't; it came up in a Google search) of all time, in terms of box office revenue. It pulled in $120 million US.

Mel's ode to Jesus's suffering pulled in $370 million US at the box office. And it had subtitles! (It was filmed in Latin and Aramaic).

One thing I've wondered is if the two films had the same effect on their constituencies that Titanic did on its core audience of teenage girls with crushes on Leonardo di Caprio -- keep bringing them back for repeat viewings in the theatres. Certainly many churches organized outings to see it (Perhaps that's to be expected; when I saw Dances with Wolves in Regina back in 1995 or whatever, there were way more Indians in the audience than you'd normally see at a movie).

Of the two, 9/11 was the critical darling in the MSM. On Rottentomatoes.com, it received an 85 per cent 'fresh' rating from the critics (meaning 172 reviewers liked it and 32 didn't. The average rating was 7.4 out of 10). However, not only did conservatives hate it (fairly predictable, I'd say), but MSM political journalists also invested much energy in attacking it (see my CTV.ca commentary).

Many MSM critics were passionate in their dislike of The Passion. It had a 'rotten rating' of 51 per cent. One-hundred-twenty-four critics liked it while 117 didn't. The average rating was six out of 10. Even some Christian reviews I've seen thought it was a bit over the top.

But clearly, for their constitutencies, whatever the flaws, those two films were the Truth and The Light.

And to me, they stand as symbols for the political/religious/cultural divide that became evident in America on Nov. 2.