DENZEL IS AMERICA’S CHOICE TO PLAY JESUS ON THE BIG SCREEN, OVER PACINO OR DAY-LEWIS

MOST WOULD RATHER DEBATE POLITICS THAN SPORTS

“BUCKET LIST” BELONGS IN THE DICTIONARY

MOST BLAME ROYALS’ NUDE PHOTOS ON MAGAZINES

       New York, N.Y.—More Americans think Denzel Washington would make a better Jesus on film than either Al Pacino or Daniel Day-Lewis. Politics beats out sports as a preferred debate topic. “Bucket list” should be a dictionary term before “sexting” or “man cave.” And nude pictures of members of Britain’s royal family are the fault of the magazines. Those are some of the opinions expressed by Americans in the latest edition of the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll, the results of which can be found in the December issue of Vanity Fair, or on 60Minutes.com or VF.com.   Go to the poll.

       Also in this month’s poll: Americans’ feeling about spouses, Christmas films and annoying gestures.

       Men or women, black or white, no matter their age, 21 percent thought Denzel Washington, the two-time Oscar winner, could play the best on-screen Jesus. He came out ahead of other respected veteran actors, such as Day-Lewis (14 percent) and Pacino (13 percent) and even one of the current, younger big-screen hunks, Ryan Gosling (11 percent).

       In a presidential-election year, 52 percent polled said they would rather debate a member of a rival political party than of a rival sports team. As you might expect, a few more women (55 percent) preferred debating politics to sports than men (48 percent).

       Five years after the film of the same name popularized the term “bucket list”—the series of things you want to do before dying—Americans believe it should get its own dictionary entry. Forty percent of all those polled picked “bucket list” as deserving of dictionary status over other popular terms like “man cave” (17 percent) and “sexting” (14 percent). “Aha moment” and “F-bomb” have apparently much less presence in the common vernacular, garnering just 4 percent and 2 percent respectively. 

      When tabloid magazines print pictures of the British royal family showing a bit too much flesh, Americans first blame the trashy tabs. Asked “When members of the British royal family are photographed without their clothes, what’s your reaction,” 45 percent picked “Blame the magazine.” Another 26 percent chose “Blame the public.” Still, 16 percent took the royals to task for removing said clothes in the first place, choosing “Blame the royal family.” But only three percent actually admitted to wanting to see such photos themselves. 

      In other questions, 60 percent of Americans polled said they would be more unhappy with their spouses if they were uneducated than if they were overweight (24 percent). Most overplayed holiday film? Twenty-three percent chose 1983’s A Christmas Story, while fewer picked old standbys like It’s a Wonderful Life (12 percent) and Miracle on 34th Street (9 percent). Hand gestures that annoy? Americans were divided at 25 percent each, with men (32 percent) picking the universal hush sign of a finger to the lips and women (31 percent) choosing the mostly male practice of fist-pumping.

     The December issue of Vanity Fair will be available on newsstands in New York and L.A. on October 31 and nationally and on the iPad, Nook, and Kindle on November 6. The 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll is a monthly measure of the American conversation on a range of topics rather than one specific subject. Geared to offer a wide-angle view of the country every 30 days, the questions explore attitudes on culture, lifestyle, current events, and politics. 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair work together to formulate topics and questions; the poll is conducted by the CBS News Election and Survey Unit, a high-profile source of American opinion since 1969.    

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Press contacts:
 Kevin Tedesco, 212-975-2329, kev@cbsnews.com

Beth Kseniak, 212-286-7297, beth_kseniak@condenast.com

This poll was conducted at the CBS News interviewing facility among a random sample of 1,102 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone Sept. 27-30, 2012. Phone numbers were dialed from random-digit-dial samples of both standard landline and cell phones.  The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points.  The error for subgroups is higher. 

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.