August 4, 2006

Mel Ville.

Mel Gibson If, like me, you've just returned to the mediasphere and are wondering why Mel Gibson's face is all over your computer screen (the papers I'd been reading were concerning themselves with a few other goings on in the world), Evan Derkacz has a fine explanation at Alternet: "Mel Gibson, director of Jesus gore-fest The Passion of the Christ, was pulled over for drunk driving early Friday morning, launching almost immediately into a Jew-hating tirade of, well, biblical proportions." Hundreds of comments follow. People do care.

The most fun to be had with all this, especially if your time's on a tight budget, is Todd Levin's fresh piece at the Morning News.

Still, if you're tearing yourself up over the moral implications, relevance to current events and pundit egos, you can watch Slate's Christopher Hitchens and the New Republic's Lee Siegel have it out or turn to Mark Lawson in the Guardian or to Arianna Huffington and Bill Maher at the Huffington Post. Maher: "The World is Mel Gibson." Ah.

Updates, 8/9: "The swift and dramatic public denunciations of Mr Gibson's words has prompted discussion in the public relations industry about the best way to handle such occurrences," reports Dennis McDougal in the New York Times.

The pile-on's mounting too high, argues Lee Siegel: "Gibson has become a scapegoat for all the hateful, 'unaddressed' thoughts and feelings some people have deep inside them. The actor is now a screen onto which increasing numbers of people are projecting their dirty little secrets. How strange. Mel Gibson has become a Jew."



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Posted by dwhudson at August 4, 2006 5:39 AM

Comments

Welcome back, Dave. Hope you had a nice rest.

Posted by: Michael Guillen at August 4, 2006 8:41 AM

It was marvelous. Thanks, Michael!

Posted by: David Hudson at August 4, 2006 8:49 AM

Anybody else remember that Gibson once campaigned to star in Schindler's List?

Posted by: Peter Nellhaus at August 4, 2006 8:52 AM

I did not know that. Good Lord.

Posted by: David Hudson at August 4, 2006 11:01 AM

Am I the only one other than Jackie Mason who feels bad for Mel?

I admit I was hurt at first, but then remembered my feelings when I was in line at a theatre playing "Passion of the Christ" and some friends saw me and started berating me in front of the crowd for paying to see it.

I wasn't going to see it, but was too embarrassed to admit I was paying full price to see, "Eurotrip" playing on the other screen.

I've done stupid things when I was drunk, I've written comments here while I was drunk... I'm drunk now on NyQuil!

I am tired of the Jew-bashing and wish drunk celebs would swing the bashing pendulum back to Blacks and Gays just for fun.

Just like you, I was so upset that Lance Bass came out and I felt betrayed all this time, that I tried to return all my CDs and posters... Mel's appearance in the News helped me get over my thoughts of Lance.

Honestly and sadly, Wouldn't it be cool if Rodney King could have been Mel Gibson? Just think a major celebrity getting the crap beaten out of them instead of a celeb killing someone.

I don't wish violence on anyone... Wait, I kinda do...

Maybe I'm an angry drunk?

Posted by: Jerry Lentz at August 5, 2006 4:58 AM

The Mel mania already seems to be fading somewhat, especially now that people (some Jewish people, at that, apparently not bothered by Mel's characterisation of them as warmongers) are coming out in support of him. Give it a week or two and people will have generally stopped caring. Someone else will have done something else stupid or the media will try and whip up a campaign about something to distract us all from things that really matter, and we'll all be outraged by that instead. I still don't know what to make of it all, myself.

Posted by: James Russell at August 6, 2006 3:12 AM