So, finally, the vile Mel Gibson has said something which may have some consequences. That a successful public figure could say such things, even though he was drunk, is just more evidence of the frightful loss of civility and the degeneration of discourse. It becomes okay to say such things in a world in which Ann Coulter is a regular on "Hardball," labels Bill Clinton as gay because promiscuous men fear women and are hostile to them which is a gay trait (would love to see her research on that), and then goes on to think it funny to call Al Gore a "fag." Are we not to far away from "kike" and pretending its funny? It's a slippery slope in these times of Mideast war to blame the Jews for all wars throughout history, as Gibson did. We are desperately searching for "the other" these days.
Yes, Gibson should be shunned by Hollywood for this, as some are demanding (except for the Hollywood executives who have had nothing to say). But where was Hollywood, where was the press... [more]
... where were the commentators (or just about anyone except for GLAAD - the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), when he was bashing and maligning gay men?
In "Bird On A Wire" he creates a couple of absurdly effeminate, flamboyant hairdresser characters just so his character can mock, ridicule, and denigrate them as less than human.
He openly expressed in interviews a virtual paranoia that homosexuals were out to get him (including running him off the freeway).
He gave an infamous interview to a Spanish magazine in which he reduced gays to sex acts which he condemned as unnatural.
And then in Braveheart, he creates yet again a mincing, prancing, effeminate Piers Gaveston, allegedly the lover of Prince Edward (the future Edward II). But that wasn't enough. Just to show that all gays are offensive stereotypes who must be killed, he creates an event which never happened. Edward I comes into a room, quarrels with his son, Prince Edward, and then tosses Gaveston to his death out a window. Gaveston's death, punctuated by a girly scream, brought cheers and applause from theater audiences. Kill the queers.
And if Passion of the Christ wasn't bad enough for its anti-Semitism, Herod Antipas is portrayed as an effeminate homosexual (he wears makeup and has "boy-toys"). This may have been a common caricature of Herod in medieval Passion plays, but it does not appear in the Gospels and is contrary to the historical record.
Some of the current articles about Gibson's anti-Semitic outburst (in vino veritas?) state that he has distanced himself from his Holocaust-denier father's beliefs. That is not true. What he has done is merely to clarify his father's comments for us. According to Gibson, his father doesn't deny the Holocaust - he only denies that six million Jews were killed. You know - the old "there weren't six million Jews in Europe" argument and besides, "there were more Jews in Europe after WWII than before."
The crux of the father/son view of the Holocaust is that it was not a separate event; and deserves no special mention; that it was merely part of an overall persecution of ALL devoutly religious people by secular humanists during the Third Reich. This, of course, ignores the history of anti-Semitism by Christianity and the complicity of many elements of the official Catholic Church in the Final Solution.
It also treats Jews in a way which makes it appear that their status is something which is always wholly voluntary - like being a Presbyterian. (Which is also the same sort of basis for persecution of homosexuals.) Jews, are, of course, not just a religion, but a cultural, ethnic, biological people. (Which is why someone like me could always convert to the Jewish religion, but it would never make me truly Jewish.)
If all that isn't crazy enough, get this: Gibson is under contract with ABC to produce a mini-series on the Holocaust which no doubt is planned to push his view of it as a struggle between the God-fearing and the secular humanists.
So if this latest outrage is what it takes to finally push him to the sidelines, so be it. It is long overdue.