What is your take on the Mel Gibson story?

In My Humble Opinion
41

[QUOTE=Gene Frenkle]
And no, I didn’t mean to imply republicans are all anti-semites, I meant, do you think Joe Texas is not gonna go see a Mel epic because Mel hates Jews? Not bloody likely.
[/QUOTE]
But you strongly implied that “the average red stater” doesn’t care about this stuff. You might be right that Gibson’s comments won’t stop them seeing a Gibson film, but this is quite different from implying that they don’t care about anti-semitism, which is what i got from your post. I know conservatives who don’t like Sean Penn’s or Susan Sarandon’s politics, but who will still see their movies. Some people believe that art is art, and that peripheral political issues are unrelated to acting ability; such people can be found at all points of the political compass.

You also said that “his core audience, probably agrees with him on this issue.” As far as i can tell, Gibson’s core audience is not confined to anti-semites. If it were, it’s unlikely he would have been one of the biggest box-office draws in Hollywood over the past couple of decades. As far as i can tell, the people who watch Mel Gibson movies are regular Americans—left and right, north and south, Republican and Democrat, urban and rural.

42

[QUOTE=wm–]
You know, I’m honestly curious about this. Is it really SOP in a police report to write down eight pages worth of specific quoted remarks made during a DUI stop? I mean, if this was Jim-Bob the local good old boy who got stopped for driving drunk and acting belligerent, would the police even note whether he made some bigoted comments, much less transcribe them all word for word?

[/QUOTE]

I have no idea if it is SOP, but I think that where the person you arrest is a Big Shot™ who claims he can cause crap for you personally in your career, as good ol’ Mel allegedly did, it doesn’t strike me as unreasonable to document your interaction with him in some detail - after all, he may in fact be telling the truth about the extent of his influence, so you want a good paper trail for your own protection. The fact that much of it contains bigoted stuff could well be a side-effect.

43

People that drunk say strange things or repeat things that were said to them that traumatised them. That said, Mel Gibson is probably an ass, but there’s more at play here. Eight pages? That would take a cop hours…! how pissed off/personally invested did he have to be to write this ‘epic’ and then submit it? He had to know the desk sergeant was going to kick it back for taking 8 pages to say what could be said in 3 paragraphs. And how did a gossip columnist manage to show up to the station just then and get their hands on the ‘encyclopedia britanica’ version? Lucky guess?

My questions about this are very different from the Ops:

Q1: What length yacht will the cop buy in cash w/i the next 3 months?

Q2: Will the name be ‘Lethal Transcript’?

44

[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
Now it seems he really does have a hard-on for the Jews. I wonder why.
[/QUOTE]
Probably he was raised that way. IIRC, his father is a holocaust denier.

45

I don’t know about you, but if any guy called me sugar tits, I would probably cock punch him legally with my team of Super Jew Litigation Team. No capes, but they would have fancy yamulke’s.

Only if I could afford SJLT.

I don’t buy his remorse at all. He is just feeling bad that he got his hand caught in the cookie jar. He isn’t sorry about trying to steal the cookie and blaming Jews for controlling the cookie world.

46

[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest]
No capes, but they would have fancy yamulke’s.
[/QUOTE]
That’s yarmulke, sugar tits.

47

‘Yarmulke Sugar Tits’ ?
Would that movie star Pam Grier, Uma Thurman or Cynthia Rothrock? Would she get to say, “The names Sugar Tits. Yarmulke Sugar Tits”?
BTW, how often would she/they get to beat up Mel Gibson?
(I could see Ebert giving it a ‘thumbs up’ already…) :smiley:

48

[QUOTE=Gene Frenkle]
You guys are forgetting that of the 260+ million people in just the US, let alone the world, probably less than one percent give enough of a shit about anti-Semitic comments to have an affect on his career.
[/QUOTE]

Well, one thing to think about isn’t so much his audience as his co-workers. People who are deciding whom to work with on a future set might decide not to work with someone who thinks they’re evil and depraved, and that could end up hurting his career. So the question is: are there any Jews in Hollywood?

Daniel

49

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
Well, one thing to think about isn’t so much his audience as his co-workers. People who are deciding whom to work with on a future set might decide not to work with someone who thinks they’re evil and depraved, and that could end up hurting his career. So the question is: are there any Jews in Hollywood?
[/QUOTE]
I dunno - IIRC, I remember reading before POTC came out that nobody would ever want to work with him again, and then the movie made a zillion dollars. In Hollywood, as with most businesses, the important thing is if it’s going to make money or not. If Mel and his projects continue to be bankable, he’ll find people to work with him: Jewish, Catholic or Scientologist.

That said, it’s telling the Mel admitted to saying despicable things, while clarifying that he didn’t mean it. :rolleyes: I would think he could have gotten away with it if he flatly denied he said anything of the sort, and it would be a “cop-said/Mel-said” thing. Mel’s fans would defend him as the victim of a smear campaign, and people who hate Mel anyway (DVLP raises hand) will continue to despise him with the heat of a thousand suns. Frankly, he could spend a year personally feeding orphaned Jewish children and I’d still hate him (though it would be harder to, admittedly). So, it seems he was lucid enough to know what he said and that it was documented. That is interesting.

Has anyone else here read the un-edited report (it is online, I can’t remember the site though). It is interesting if you can get through the mostly-unintelligible handwritten text. There’s a lot more besides the oft-quoted “I am fucked” and “sugar tits.” Apparently he had 3/4 of a fifth of tequila close at hand in the car.

Is his alcoholism well-known? Has he had a stint in re-hab or has been known to attend AA? His statement that he’s battled alcoholism for years seems out-of-nowhere, though I certainly don’t pursue information about him if I can help it. Seems to me that he’s trying to save face by claiming he’s battling a disease, and had an unfortunate relapse, rather than admitting he’s an asshat who got plastered and then got behind the wheel.

Whatta jerkface.

50

[QUOTE=Darth Vader’s Little Pal]
IFrankly, he could spend a year personally feeding orphaned Jewish children and I’d still hate him (though it would be harder to, admittedly).
[/QUOTE]

That’s more or less what I had in mind when I said ‘miles to go.’

51

[QUOTE=Darth Vader’s Little Pal]
Is his alcoholism well-known? Has he had a stint in re-hab or has been known to attend AA?
[/QUOTE]

CNN is reporting that he checked into rehab today.

52

About actors not wanting to work with him in the future- IIRC POTC didn’t have any big stars and it did all right. I’m sure he’d be able to find a few of the thousands of actors out there to work with him, no matter if he killed Jewish infants. Woody Allen doesn’t have a hard time finding big names to star in his films. Actors are whores, most would star in a film directed by Hitler if they thought it would get them exposure.

53

Monica Bellucci is a huge global star. Just because she isn’t well known here in the painfully provincial U.S. doesn’t reduce her international profile.
[QUOTE=Gene Frenkle]
Actors are whores, most would star in a film directed by Hitler if they thought it would get them exposure.
[/QUOTE]
Years ago, the U.S. Army intended to shoot a recruiting commercial here in Seattle but was unable to fill the cast with local actors; they had to import several to meet their needs.

Please do not generalize about subjects where you clearly have no knowledge or experience.

54

[QUOTE=Cervaise]
Monica Bellucci is a huge global star. Just because she isn’t well known here in the painfully provincial U.S. doesn’t reduce her international profile.Years ago, the U.S. Army intended to shoot a recruiting commercial here in Seattle but was unable to fill the cast with local actors; they had to import several to meet their needs.

Please do not generalize about subjects where you clearly have no knowledge or experience.
[/QUOTE]

I do find that fascinating in that actors are usually all over any kind of paid acting work they can get. Do you have any kind of a cite for this claim, and specifically the implication that it was unable to to get actors, because the Seattle area actors specifically refused to participate?

55

Sorry Cervaise, I have to politely disagree. Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, The convicted child molester who directed Powder & Jeepers Creepers, etc. etc. have no shortage of finding name actors to work with them. Are you not aware of the hundreds of reality shows where people will do anything to get famous, like eating sheep eyeballs? You think someone who would be buried in cow shit wouldn’t star in a Mel epic because he hates Jews? My comment about Hitler may have been a bit of hyperbole, but the basic premise about actors is true. Your proof about a local commercial made outside of Hollywood notwithstanding.

56

It’s one of those issues where blanket generalizations are rather pointless. Some actors/entertainers are very choosy about what work they accept, while others will take anything.

Kathy Griffin, in her show Life on the D List, says that she will take basically any paying gig. Michael Caine, a famous and highly respected dramatic actor, is well known for taking just about any offer of paid acting work. He has been explicit about it, and famously said in response to a question about the movie Jaws: The Revenge, in which he starred:

“I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”

57

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]

  1. Is it common for the police to cover up or “sanitize” the details of celebrity arrests? Is that legal?
    [/QUOTE]

ISTM that they were creating a sanitized version for release to the press, which surely would have come barking. If you think that no one else would be on the streets of Malibu at that hour, or that those who might be would not slow down and carefully scrutinize the traffic stop, or that those people would think nothing of the fact that it was Mel Gibson, or that not one of those people would call the media, you would be very, very, very, very wrong.

Given that Gibson oh-so-tactfully made his remarks during a major Israeli war, the commander was merely trying to alleviate the shitstorm that could conceivably follow if such remarks, not essential to the facts of the arrest, by such a currently influential figure as Gibson were to get out.

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
2. Do you buy Gibson’s apology? From what I know about alcohol and alcoholism, it can certainly make you say things you’d like to take back, but does it realy make you say things you don’t mean at all. Bear in mind that Gibson was not all that drunk. I don’t believe that being a little buzzed will typically cause people to say things that would normally be completely antithetical to how they really think and feel. If we hear a drunk ranting about “niggers,” we don’t typically give him a pass or buy the excuse that the alcohol made him say it.

For what it’s worth, I do believe Gibson’s apology spunds substantially sincere and not just self-serving. I believe he IS ashamed of himself and has genuine remorse. I’m not sure I buy that the anti-semitic remarks were not indicative of his true feelings, though.
[/QUOTE]

Given that he goes into an anti-Jewish tirade with no remotely Jewish entity in the immediate surroundings other than the shape of the sheriffs’ badges, I would say that speaks to some really deep-seated bigotry there. I think he’s so anti-semitic that he doesn’t even know how much.

Back in the day, D.W. Griffith publicly expressed bewilderment at the idea that anyone could regard Birth of a Nation as racist. For him apparently, the notion that the black politicians elected in the south during the very first stages of Reconstruction spent their time in the legislative halls dancing jigs while chomping down fried chicken (as depicted in his film) was not racial opinion but undeniable truth. How can truth be racist? :rolleyes:

I did not see Passion, but the consensus seems to be that Gibson took advantage of the lack of character development in the Gospels to rewrite what is historically known about Pontius Pilate to portray him as a gentle, unwilling soul who simply could not stand up to the bloodthirsty Jews.

His issued apology is nothing but ass-covering. The backlash has already begun (Disney has cancelled his Holocaust miniseries for ABC, jewish Hollywood agents are calling for a boycott of him), and the apology was intended to stave that off as much as possible.

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
3. How will this affect Gibson’s career? I’ve been looking forward to his upcoming movie, Apocalypto about the ancient Mayans. Personally, I don’t think this incident will stop me from seeing the movie, but I could certainly understand why a lot of people would not want to give him their money. Do you think this kind of revelation (which is really not THAT big of a surprise) is likely to permanently damage his bankability as a director and an actor? What about the willingness of Jewish people in the business to work with him?
[/QUOTE]

It depends on how popular Apocalypto is, and whether his public meltdown continues. If it’s an overwhelming blockbuster, all will be forgotten in Hollywood at large. If it turns a small profit, people will publicly support him, but he will fade quietly away, and if it’s a turkey, he’s through in this town.

It’s not a question of whether high-profile actors will work with him. Actors will do anything. But the money doesn’t have to bankroll him if the money doesn’t want to. And while Passion of the Christ put a tidy sum in his pocket, it’s probably only enough to fund one or two flops on his own.

My money’s on him continuing to melt down, a la Tom Cruise. Passion gave him enough support that he is convinced of the rightness of every one of his opinions, which seem to include the idea that the LA County Sheriff’s Department is inundated with Zionists. He’s sure to step hip-deep in it again before he’s recovered from this incident.

58

Mel Gibson has always had “old fashioned” views. He regularly rags on Homosexuals and Femminists. He is a staunch old school Catholic, and he believes the old school Catholic ways.

So why should it be any surprise that he picked on the Jews.

Gay people said they were so offended by him when he ranted on them. But they they still go to see his movies. So apparently one can be offensive if one is attractive enough to make the statements mute.

What I object to is the people saying, he’s being picked on because he’s a celebrity. Much like Rush Limbaugh claimed.

Funny how celebrities take all the good, the money, the perks, the fame but complain when they are on the flipside.

When Mel gets into a night club or goes to the head of a reservations list at a happening resturaunt neither he nor any celebrity see this “singling out” as a bad thing. But when a cop arrests him suddenly he and every other celebrity is being picked on.

Well the door swings both ways.

As for Mel’s apology. Those are words, it’s easy to be generous when it ain’t costing you nothing.

So it’s easy to say “I’m Sorry,” especially when you’ve had the fun of telling the other party off.

In this case you can replace apology with damage control and it’d still stand

59

The new statement he issued, asking the Jewish community to help him…help him *what * exactly? Explain to him why they aren’t the purveyors of all the evil in all the world? He’s asking them to prove something? He needs a couple more days in the dry-out tank so he can start thinking clearly before he opens his mouth.

This incident is just so ugly.

60

I think Mel just needs to embrace Xenu.