Passion of Christ vs 12 Years a Slave

Critics were at best indifferent towards Mel's Christ epoch, often deriding it for the OTT sadistic depiction of the lashing scenes.

However, they not only gave this movie a pass for the violence but praised it to high heaven (no pun intended). No derision towards McQueen, for some reason.

This is not a judgement on the overall quality of 12YAS mind you, just an observation about double standards of progressive film critics and media types.