Mel, Mel, Mel.
Oh boy, Mel. Did you ever put yourself in a corner. You were a freewheeling sarcastic action star who went serious. Then you made a religious movie that isolated you from Hollywood and put you under a microscope. The movie also had about 90 seconds of material that when taken out of context of the bigger story, made the Jewish community uncomfortable.
Then you got drunk – a bad move for a religious ICON (his production company name) – drove drunk – a bad move for a role model – chewed out an officer – a bad move for a Hollywood star – and finally, when you realized the officer was jewish.. you let the alcohol talk.
Lets give you the benefit of the doubt. Lets say you just realized there was something you could say that would offend this guy – if he had a limp you would have called him limpy. If he had a pimple, you would have called him Pizzaface. But he was Jewish.. and you made a statement about his race. Then you took it a step further and made a statement about everyone in his race.
Mel, you knew you were under scrutiny by the Jewish community. You spent a year claiming your movie wasn’t anti-Semitic. People were almost over it. People were almost ready to accept you back in Hollywood. But it will never happen now, Mel. You got too serious for Lethal Weapon 5. We might have forgiven that Mel. You’re too controversial for the Christian movies. Too Christian for the mainstream.. and Christians will reject you because you seem like a bigot. What are you going to do, Mel? You killed your career, and its too bad.
Why should we care?
I’m not sure why this is the issue that’s spurring me to this, but in the spirit of ethical debate I’m going to say that I personally think those comments are a bit out of line.
Weird, I know, especially since I’m like the only person in America yet to see Passion of the Christ, nor do I really have much interest to, so it’s not as if I’ve been in Mel Gibson’s court for years. Truthfully, I have no really strong feelings towards him one way or the other.
The issue that’s bugging me is not Mel Gibson, what he drank, what he did, or what he said. The issue is how *we* choose to react to it. And what it comes down to, really, is who are we to judge? Honestly.
Yes, making anti-semitic remarks is wrong, and yes, so is drunk driving. We know that. But clear across the country, living lives that are *completely* unaffected by his actions, why should we point fingers, or mock? (It’s possible that your post was not meant mockingly in any way, Justin. If so, please let me know. But I did get that impression from the opening lines “Mel Mel Mel.”) Drunk driving and making anti-semitic remarks were his sins. Fine. But it is not our right to provide glib commentary or any other form of condemnation. Not about him, not about anyone, really.
I should mention that here I’m speaking from a Christian ethic – namely one that’s based on forgiveness and mercy being the highest values. People who follow other belief structures should feel free to mock and point fingers to their heart’s content. But not Christians (and yes, that’s a hell of an arrogant statment to make. I still stand by it.) I’ll also fully admit the hypocrisy in this post. I’m sure I’ve made many such catty remarks about people in the past, probably on this very board.
I heard somewhere that we have an interesting reaction to celebrities: as human beings, we instinctively crave gods that we can adore, so we’re happy to see stars rise to glory. But as Americans, we can’t stand the fact that any person might be better than us, so we take just as much glee when those celebrities fall. From worship to schadenfreaude.
But there’s better things we could be doing with our time, which is short enough as it is, than dwelling on another man’s failures.
Again, feel free to blow me apart on this… I’m sure I judge others all the time (I’m in theatre, for crying out loud). But every now and then the thought comes into my head that even though it’s something that we all do, that doesn’t mean it’s something we *should* do.
Glib Commentary
Dude. There goes my purpose in life.
👿
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Too true…
LOL
Oh no! Now what’s left to pass on to your children?
You’re right
Rowan,
You’re absolutely right, from a Daniel, perfectly-logical point of view. But we’re anything but logical, and we all fall prey to the vice of putting others down to raise ourselves up. We learn it young as kids and have to work real hard to ourgrow it.
I personally don’t think Mel’s career is over. Hollywood may be a Jewish-controlled industry, but it’s even more money-controlled. If Mel can come up with a movie that will sell, it’ll get made.
Even worse than “Passion of the Christ”, Mel’s own father is working against him. Mel’s had to apologize up one side and down the other for his dad’s cock-eyed anti-Semetic remarks, and Mel’s dad wasn’t even drunk, I think. Now he makes similar remarks when drunk? Add in the somehow anti-Semetic POTC (hey, you movie makes us look like we killed Jesus!!! Uhm….), and he’s buried.
I personally was sick hearing about it once I heard about it once. The constant babbling about it on the media just shows how much celebrity drives media and entertainment now-a-days. Reality TV makes so much more of us celebrities, and fuels the machine even more. We don’t want to be informed, we want to be entertained. And media obligies us, even if it means the truth, decency, and common sense get trampled.
Note how we’re all over celebrities lives now. Behind the True Hollywoos Scenes Story. American Idols show us becoming celebrities. I don’t think we put celebrities up to be gods we adore as much as we envy. It might be dependent on their talent, or lack thereof. I adore Bono’s ability to make music and his drive to save the poor. I envy the fact my last name isn’t Hilton or Trump. I want to sing like Eddie Vedder, but I don’t want to be be Eddie Vedder. I want to have Donald Trump’s money, but I don’t want to be the Donald. I have nothing but contempt for Ms Paris. But how many girls want to be her and men want to be in, *ahem*, in her company? For what? She’s good-looking and rich. Neither of which is due to her hard work or talent. But now she’s an A-list celebrity?
Whatever. Mel’s an idiot, but he can act and bring money into Hollywood. He’ll work again. I might even watch it, but I won’t be looking to him for guidance in the area of race and ethnic relations anytime soon. I wasn’t going to before though…
My $.02
P.S. I wrote this in two different time periods, so if seems disjoint and rambling, I’m blaming it on that. Yeah, I got cut off in the middle, that’s it!
Commentary
A bit out of line? Who are we to criticize?
Umm.. isn’t that what we do here? I mean, why criticize the president, or discuss religion or world affairs.. who are we to discuss these things? We’re not there!
So, perhaps you’re responding to the tirades and the judgements and the Barbara Walters.. but my post is exactly what it claims to be. Mel went nanners.. and his career is over. I never said it should be, I never said I wanted it to be. I even said it was too bad.
But it is, Rowan. Its over.. and for the reasons I said. He painted himself in a corner and then, inexplicably chose to say what he did. I even gave him the benefit of the doubt. Reread my post.. I didn’t call him a bigot. I said he was trying to get a dude’s goat cuz he was drunk and lost his inhibitions.
But lets face it. You can say the media is out of line if you want. I agree with you. But to say my post is out of line is weird. Its in the media, and why not discuss it here. I refrained from judging Mel’s character and just assessed his career for the sake of sparking conversation. And I did so. Why is that a weird thing to do on a blog dude.
PS You have stupid hair.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
You have a point. Read more
You have a point.
Read more carefully, your post does not in any way categorize him as a bigot, and could just be taken as a musing on the end of a person’s career. So I withdraw most of what I said, duly chastised.
However, though I’m sure this goes without saying, I must point out that there is a WORLD of difference between debating the efficacy of a president or the values of a religion and discussing celebrity gossip. And I’d like to think that when it comes to “what we do here,” it’s more of the former.
And I don’t have stupid hair. *You* have stupid hair. Your *mom* has stupid hair.
Your son yet unborn has stupid hair.
Quick… to the angelmobile…
LOL
“They took my son!” – Insert show Justin currently watches and/or has watched here.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
Newspaper analogy
Hey, we just flipped to the style section, thats all.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com