Posted on 08/01/2006 7:04:55 AM PDT by gopwinsin04
So is Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic spew really headline news -- or is it just another celebrity DUI? Another high-profile addition to The Smoking Gun's mug shot gallery (Nick and Glen, meet your new buddy Mel)? Monologue fodder for Leno, Letterman, Conan, and Kimmel? Nothing but a tempest in a tequila bottle?
Maybe that would be the case if these were ordinary times. But, with extremists gaining power and garnering sympathy all across the world, there is nothing ordinary about these times.
And that is why this could prove to be a seminal moment in our cultural history. Particularly in the cultural history of Hollywood.
Taking a page from our president, I see the Gibson story as "a moment of opportunity," a chance for reasonable people to stand up and be counted. For the sane among us to identify, separate, and condemn the extremists, the fanatics, the fundamentalists, the bigots, the hate-mongers and say 'no more.'
In the same way that ordinary Muslims need to separate themselves from the blood-drenched ideology of Hezbollah, Hollywood needs to separate itself from the odious racism of Gibson. And I don't make that connection lightly. Remember, during his DUI tirade, Gibson claimed, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." That kind of thinking makes him psychological soul mates with Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has said, "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak, and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology, and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew."
Gibson's no-longer-deniable brand of bigotry has led to the extermination of millions -- and continues to fuel much of the strife and suffering in the world today. Which is why Hollywood cannot sit this one out and wait for the reviews to come in.
For years, social conservatives have questioned the morals and ethics of the entertainment community -- tossing around the shibboleth of "Hollywood values" as an oxymoronic grenade in the culture wars. Well, now is the time for Hollywood to show what those values really are by making Gibson pay the price for his bigotry and intolerance.
For starters, the town's power players need to step up and publicly condemn Gibson's vile comments (in effect, saying in public what they are already saying in private conversations I and many others have had). I mean, it shouldn't be so hard to publicly denounce someone -- even an Oscar-winner -- for being a raging anti-Semite.
But that's not happening. From this morning's Los Angeles Times:
Although many of the town's senior executives are Jewish and Hollywood has a long history of supporting Israel and Jewish causes, there was no widespread public condemnation of Gibson's comments over the weekend. Although some high-level executives privately expressed dismay at the statements attributed to Gibson after his arrest, none of those contacted would speak on the record.
Talk about lacking the courage of their convictions. Which makes Ari Emanuel's no-holds-barred post all the more praise-worthy. But is Ari the only high-profile figure willing to publicly draw a line in the Malibu sand? How disgusting and disappointing is that?
I know this is, at its heart, a very cautious town -- a place that always likes to keep one eye on the bottom line -- but this is no time to play it safe or to put dollars ahead of doing the unquestionably right thing.
Which is why Gibson's agent, Ed Limato, should immediately drop him as a client. And not because his boss at ICM, Jeff Berg, is Jewish, nor because so many of his clients, including Billy Crystal, are Jewish. This isn't a matter of Jews sticking together or non-Jews showing solidarity. It's about choosing sides in the real battle being fought all across the globe -- the fight between extremism and rationality, between hatred and common decency.
And Bob Iger at Disney needs to pull the plug on two Gibson projects that are in the works. The company is slated to distribute Gibson's latest directorial project, Apocalypto, opening on December 8. They should refuse to do so. And ABC, which is owned by Disney, should, without delay, scrap its head-scratching plan to develop a miniseries about the Holocaust with Gibson's company (yep, you read that right).
Yet when asked about the status of the still-in-development miniseries, an ABC spokeswoman said, "It is not at the point where you would make those determinations. There is no script."
Question for ABC: Do you really need to see a script to know that the idea of having a Holocaust-set miniseries produced by a guy who thinks "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" is a god-awful one?
Reading the horror stories of the survivors of the Qana bombing, any rational person's instinct is to criticize the tactics Israel is using to take on Hezbollah. Then a thought arises: will this criticism come across as part and parcel of the anti-Semitic worldview of the Gibson crowd?
Which is yet another reason Gibson needs to be ostracized: his lunatic ravings make it all-the-harder for legitimate criticisms of Israel's methods to be expressed and to be heard with uncluttered ears.
QUOTE:
"That stuff is booze talking," the deputy said in an interview outside his home. "There's two things that booze does. It amplifies your basic personality. If you are a laid-back kind of person, just an easy going kind of person, booze is going to amplify that and you'll be just sitting around going how it's a wonderful day.
"But, if you are high-strung person, it's going to amplify that and all the bad things are going to come out."
END QUOTE
Gibson has appologized for his actions, he was acting stupid and it was the booze talking...
As for his opposition to the war, or Bush, that's a totally different matter altogether. And that's a discussion for another time. All you have going on here is a dog pile of stupidity.. if this had been say A Kennedy who oh, I don't know, wrecked his car at 3am because he was $hitfaced these same folks calling for Gibson's head would be holding him up as an icon for seeking help for his problem etc etc etc...
This is all just fabricated outrage by people who don't like Gibson.
Rahm Emanuel's (Cliniton butt boy) younger brother, Ari Emanuel, is a Hollywood agent and inspired Jeremy Piven's character Ari Gold on the HBO series Entourage.
Mel will be the latest victim of the Double Standard, which says that:
1. Christian, conservative, republican, white, male are held to this standard: Anything you say can and will be used against you if someone outside of this group claims to have been offended; you will be hounded until you resign (apologies are not good enough).
2. Anyone not in the above group has this standard: You can say or do anything against other people, especially those in the above group, and you will be automatically deemed to have done nothing wrong; your whining apology will be enough; there will be no outrage, no endless editorials, no denunciations. And you won't have to resign.
The arresting officer has said he "...did not want to ruin..." Mel's career?
Does this not strike you as odd? Does every officer that takes a license away think about "ruining careers".
> Does this not strike you as odd? Does every officer that takes a license away think about "ruining careers".
Huh? Getting booked for DUI is not a career enhancer.
No one's asking the obvious question about how TMZ got its 'exclusive' on the police report. And no one's asking if this particular Deputy and Gibson have a personal history.
All I can say is when I was in the news biz my paper had lots of deputies on its 'tip list.' They were promised anonymity and got a nice check in the mail if they phoned the City Desk with lurid inside info on their cases involving the high and mighty. And I'm sure some of them had personal axes to grind. That's the problem with 'anonymous sources.'
""> Does this not strike you as odd? Does every officer that takes a license away think about "ruining careers". ""
"Huh? Getting booked for DUI is not a career enhancer."
Look, it is very apparent that some here still think Passion was antisemitic and they are going to "ruin " mel's career come hell or high water.
Pious Jews know who the real enemy is and it is not someone that does a literal portrayal of Christ's last hours.
This gossip is divisive and I come here to FR to expand on real issues. Bashing Mel is a victory for the marxist relativist left and I will not lend any more space to this nonsense.
There will be other charges. He wasn't stopped for speeding but for "reckless driving" ... and the DUI. Then he resisted arrest when he tried to run from the policeman. He clearly made threats to the officer. There are other little things that may come up ... but it won't just be a DUI.
BTW, a press conference by the police department in about 25 minutes if you wanna watch.
The officer said that Mel was fine up while the car was being searched and the bottle was found. The point where it went out of control is when the officer said he was being arrested ... the Mel tried to run and escape.
After that because ever increasing verbal abuse.
Sounds like the alcohol may not have been the only thing ... and he didn't blow a high rate. But it sounds like he was ANGRY that the officer actually thought he could arrest Mel Gibson! He owns Malibu ... and on and on.
So 87 in a 45 (which is horrible) ... a little alcohol and a lot of anger at the policeman ... and Jews.
His wife seems to be pretty thick-skinned. Mel explained in an interview that she would be going to hell because she is an Episcopalian and only Catholics can go to heaven.
Are you off your meds? Multiple people at the bar where Gibson had gotten drunk witnessed him getting into his car in an inebriated state, and driving off. He got stopped because he was speeding, and arrested because he was driving drunk. None of this happened because the officer was Jewish (if he even was). Much more likely, the officer wore a name badge showing a surname that is commonly Jewish, and that set off the drunken anti-Semitic Mel.
Nope, it's quite real. From his interview for a New Yorker article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/980753/posts
The part where he explains why his wife is going to hell is near the end.
I don't get why so many FReepers stubbornly refuse to believe that this guy is a complete lunatic.
Interview with Hutton Gibson:
http://www.moviecitynews.com/notepad/2004/040303_npd.html
Mel financing a church for his father:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_416937.html
NYT Magazine article:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general534.html
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