Mel Gibson seems to be having a hard time of it with middle
age. A far cry from the slim good looking but diminutive Ozzie
American lad who first caught our eye in the early 1980’s
with David Weir’s “Gallipoli“ and a year
or so later cuddling up against the rangy Sigourney Weaver
in “Year of Living Dangerously”. Maybe the post-Apocalyptic
“Mad Max” roadie movies were the shape of things
to come?
And just maybe, Mel would’ve been happier in his skin
sticking with Oz rather than
repatriating himself to Hollywood and all that money. After
all, Australian male actors seem to be having rather a good
run in Hollywood and still seem to remain regular blokes.
Crowe may have his odd media moment or three, but he’s
not off the planet, and Messrs Ledger, Jackman et al., seem
to hang on to a level of good antipodean common sense without
inflating like a balloon and flying around a copshop like
a fart in space.
Alas, It seems Mel has been a very bad goy......
He has disgraced himself, seriously this time and is in for
some heavy duty self-abasement, but don’t count our
boy out yet, he’s taking to the role like a re-make
of “Venus in Furs”. Obviously being publicly disembowelled
in “Braveheart“ didn’t do it for him.
Mel was hauled over by a Malibu deputy and cited for drunken
driving on the very same stretch of Pacific Highway that those
other talented but troubled thespians Robert Downey and Nick
Nolte had come to similar grief. Mel did not feel it was a
fair cop and did not react well to his apprehension. It seems
all may not be going swimmingly in Mel’s life as he
announced to arresting Officer Mee that his life was “f***ed”,
or fugged, as Norman Mailer might put it a century or so ago.
Moving right on up from self-pity Mel took it into his head
that Officer Mee might be Jewish and party to a Semitic plot
to crucify him, just like they did to Jesus in his last movie.
“Are you a Jew”, he enquired? Warming to the subject
he informed Officer Mee that the Jews had started all the
wars there’d ever been in history and that he owned
Malibu and Officer Mee would be sorry. After much fugging
of the Jews in general and Officer Mee in particular, Mel
arrived at the local copshop where things continued downhill.
“Oo yoo lookin’ at SugarTits” he affably
demanded of a lady sergeant come to greet him. Now that is
an intriguing, if not inspired on-the-spot insult. It must
be the solid Okker upbringing of his youth. You can’t
imagine a local lad like Charlie Sheen, coming up with something
half as good as that in his cups, now can you? Unable to manage
the telephone to call his lawyer and threatening to pee on
the floor to express his view of proceedings Mel refused to
sign any papers and was duly deposited in the detox cell.
Sprung from the can and sobered up, the following day Mel
quickly issued the appropriate statement of grovel that might
be appropriate for lesser mortals. He apologised to the police
and all concerned, he was deeply ashamed of his behaviour
and the “despicable” things that he had said and
which he did not believe to be true. He had disgraced himself
and his family and that he profoundly regretted his relapse
into
alcoholism, with which he had struggled all his adult life.
Four days later, sensing the gathering media blizzard about
to descend upon his head as the juicy details leaked out to
a jeering and/or supposedly “outraged” media,
Mel threw himself into the rôle of atoning penitent
with all the verve and vigour of a Jimmy Swaggart in a TV
repent-fest for “hangin’ out with ho-ahs”.
He was, he said, not an anti-Semite and not a bigot; that
hatred of any kind was against his faith. He recognised that
many in the Jewish community would want nothing to do with
him. Nonetheless he asked that the Jewish community find it
in their hearts to forgive him and help him heal.
Jewish leaders were mixed in their reaction. There were offers
of help and understanding, and some thought it more media
hype than anything, but many felt it was not as easy as
simply announcing “I’m no longer a bigot”.
After the unease in the Jewish community over Gibson’s
2004 blockbuster movie “The Passion of Christ”,
which some criticised for portraying the Jews as responsible
for the death of Christ, many suspected there was a bit more
to it than a spot of sottish equal-opportunity invective giving
the highways of tinseltown its blue hue.
With his second apology, sure enough a tsunami of sententious
politically correct outrage descended upon poor Mel’s
head. Much more so, it seemed, coming from Gentiles as opposed
to a much more nuanced reaction from the Jewish community.
Some in the Hollywood crowd too, none to fond of eccentric
actor-directors, particularly when they bring in totally off-the-wall
blockbusters to show-up the anodyne fare they dish up and
call entertainment, vowed that Mel would “never work
in this town again”.
In America it is simply no longer acceptable to make such
outright anti-Semitic or anti-Black remarks. That’s
both a remarkable and a good thing, considering how recently
large numbers of Americans were both. I guess self-righteousness
wins out over prejudice, at least publicly. I wonder a bit
about all those Evangelicals though, urging the Israelis to
smite the Ammonites, Midianites and Philistines with sword
and fire in what they delight in seeing as the opening rounds
of Armageddon, when the Children of Israel all become Christians
or get cast into the Pit of Hellfire. If that’s
not anti-Semitic, I’m not sure what is?
In a way Mel is a Christ-figure sacrificing himself for us
all. He is after all a celeb and that’s what celebs
are, human sacrifices. For whatever reasons, beauty or talent,
we imbue them with a collective numinosity, they live larger
lives in full public view, we shower them with adulation and
riches. Then, when we tire of them or they show common human
failings we tear them down and crucify them. Or, if they abase
themselves sufficiently, we let them live, even regain some
stature but always damaged goods, never again as demi-gods
(it’s sooo good to see Kate Moss back on the front cover
of Vanity Fayre with just a hat on).
Is Mel an anti-Semite or just a nice talented bloke with a
bit of a booze problem, who maybe got to taking himself a
bit too seriously? Much more the latter than the former, I’d
say. All the same, his Dad is on record as a Holocaust-denier
and seems to be a bit of a religious nut. Mel himself currently
espouses a form of right wing and reactionary Catholicism
which makes Cardinal Rottweiler, or Pope Benedict rather,
look positively progressive.
I’d say Mel Gibson is a guy, who like most alcoholics,
has a lot of anger bottled up and who has a knee-jerk dislike
of politically correct cant. In this sense he is not a bigot.
Whatever he says when drunk to insult people is simply calculated
to insult them best. He doesn’t actually dislike Jews,
blacks or homosexuals and more than if he called me a Pink
Bastard he’d be being anti-Caucasian. I mean c’mon,
who’d be batting an eyelid if Burton, O’Toole
or Richard Harris had been nicked for anything similar and
I don’t see them grovelling in public to save their
careers. No, no, it’s blow jobs on Sunset Blvd. and
the likes of Hugh Grant that has to sink to that.
Mel Gibson deserves a break. He’s a decent man and a
decent talent. A bit of a humbling is probably just what was
needed. With any luck he’ll be back acting in and making
movies that are a lot richer than anything he’s done
so far.
