Thank you for this most recent post. It's the sort of post I wish there had been more of on this thread, which is why I was so disappointed with the volume of namecalling.
Unfortunately I need to run out and pick up dinner right now, but I'll respond when I get back. I just wanted to compliment you on raising the level of discussion before I step out.
I agree that he's passionate about his religion, and that he felt it should be portrayed on film.
I'm not so willing to agree that that's the "bottom line", in the sense of "the" deciding factor for all issues concerning the film. It's one of the relevant factors, to be sure, but hardly the only one.
Because he has done this, he has become a target.
He has become a controversial person working on a controversial project, but I think it may be overstating it to call him a "target". I've read most of the threads on these flaps over the movie, and what many have taken to be "attacks" on him or the film (or Christianity in general) I see as predictable controversies between differing groups, which are taken (on all sides) as "attacks" by the the others due to longstanding concerns, fears, misunderstandings, and defensiveness (all of which are justified to some degree). In short, I think most folks (all around) are overreacting -- lots of people are taking things pretty personally and ending up feeling persecuted.
But truly, it's highly unlikely that anyone will get fed to lions or put into gas chambers over it, nor most of the less dire concerns I've seen voiced.
People can not believe that someone from Hollywood could actually be a morally good person,
I'd like to point out that a lot of that attitude is seen here on FR every day (directed at almost everyone *but* Gibson).
so they try to take quotes out of context
That's a pretty serious charge, do you have support for it? I haven't read the full interview (it should be hitting the newsstands right about now), but the excerpts were, I believe, first printed by NewsMax.com, which seems unlikely to have a motivation to smear Gibson or his work by misrepresenting his answers.
to try to dirty his name or label him a racist.
Again, I doubt that NewsMax.com would have those motives.
Everyone else who has commented on Gibson's available answers from that interview (including the Cathy Young essay) have just worked from the available quotes, and the Young essay reprints the full question and answer.
From the article, the author feels the need to mention Mel's dad (while coyly saying he is not to be blamed for the sins of his father), and his denial of the holocaust.
She "feels the need" to mention Mel's father because that issue is already being hotly discussed, and has been for many weeks. It is and has been a public part of this issue. She can hardly put that genie back in the bottle.
And why do you presume that her pointing out that Mel can't be blamed for his father's views was due to her being "coy"? It seems to me to be an honorable attempt to remind the reader of that fact -- to leave *out* that reminder would itself have been a "coy" attempt to leave the impression of a closer tie. How many times have we faulted, say, the New York Times for *not* making such clarifiers and instead leaving an implied smear?
Then she gives the following quote given to Noonan "My dad taught me my faith, and I believe what he taught me. The man never lied to me in his life." Note that Mel is talking about his faith. Nowhere in the Bible is the holocaust mentioned, so what is the point of this quote?
"What is in the Bible" is not synonymous with someone's "faith". If it were, no one could have any faith-based belief about any event (including modern ones, and their own modern lives) more recent than about 400AD. People's faith includes their views about what happens every day, and what the meaning is historic events which occurred after the New Testament was first set to paper. People on these threads have expressed their faiths about how Gibson has been inspired to make this movie, regardless of the fact that neither Mel Gibson nor movie-making are mentioned in the Bible. Gibson's father's faith may well include his views on the fate of the Jews in World War II -- plus people's outlook on groups of other faiths is almost by definition a belief of faith. Even if it isn't, see next paragraph, but my point is that it's not accurate to say that a person's faith consists *only* of events written in the Bible.
The first sentence is indeed about his faith. The second appears to be a much broader claim, since it talks about what his father has said in Mel's entire life.
The point of including the quote is to show why some people have concerns about whether Mel's father passed to his son his views about the Holocaust, and whether Mel believed them. Mel's statement seems a broad endorsement of everything his father may have passed on to him.
No, it's not "proof" that he agrees with all his father's views, but the point is that it's the sort of statement that raises the question, "um, exactly *how* do you mean that?" In short, it can be taken several ways, and some of those possible meanings would be real cause for concern.
To make the reader think Mel's dad's view on the holocaust is linked to what has been taught to Mel as his faith. Is that accurate journalism? No.
*May* be linked to what has been taut to Mel. Thus the raised eyebrows. Is covering an existing controversy responsible journalism? Yes.
Mel then talks of the people he knows who survived the holocaust. He also lists other atrocities of the war. She then quotes a law prof saying that Mel is close to skirting the issue.
And the law prof is correct. Gibson's answer was, unfortunately, too close to the way in which Holocaust deniers/minimizers tend to try to divert the issue when it is raised. At the very time when he should have been trying to put people's concerns to rest, Gibson managed to only raise more red flags. Not a smooth move, *whatever* his actual beliefs.
Is someone not allowed to talk about all the atrocities of the war in the same paragraph without being accused of being a minimizer of the holocaust? I guess not.
Oh please. Of course they are. However, when someone is already the son of a Holocaust denier, *and* working on a project which could be harmful to Jews if handled poorly or with any sort of lingering animus, and is given an explicit invitation to "go on the record" with their views about the Holocaust, it really *isn't* a bright time to stray from the specific topic and sound like you might be waffling or saying in effect "well, things have been tough all over".
At the very least Gibson should have known that that was not the time to launch into a laundry list of the tragedies of war during the first half of the century, in answer to a very specific question on a topic where his beliefs were already called into some sort of question.
Picture this: Your parents have been brutally murdered in cold blood, but you're beginning to have doubts about whether the detective on the case is truly concerned about catching the killer. You ask him point-blank how seriously he takes that task, and whether he understands what it means to you, and he replies, "I have the crime photos in my file. Of course your parents were killed. Tragedies happen. Crime is horrible. Criminals killed thousands of people this year. Some of them were your parents. Many people lost their lives. In Colombia, drug lords killed countless victims in the 1980's. During the last century, tribal violence in Africa killed millions." Now... Would you feel reassured? Or would you wonder why the detective was babbling about Africa?
Next she talks about how listing all the horrors of the war is somehow now a controversial topic, because I guess no one is allowed to do that anymore.
That's hardly a fair summary of what she said.
And how Mel has just hung himself with his own words.
She didn't say that either, but she did say that he blew an opportunity to allay people's concerns, and instead heightened them by sounding too similar to the sort of answers that Holocaust deniers tend to give. Not his best performance, at the very least.
Two thoughts...
First, I have to wonder if he might have made ambiguous, eyebrow raising answers intentionally because he knew the resulting uproar would bring more publicity to the project.
Second, Gibson may have given an answer which sounded too much like the kind a Holocaust denier would make, because he had so often heard his father approach the topic in that way and Mel had unconsciously picked up the verbal "script" even if he didn't share the beliefs.
I do not see it that way at all. I see a man that made a movie he believes in. He is a publicly religious man and is not afraid to admit it.
I agree.
Now, he is a marked man, because the world is not ready to have a star that is a morally good person.
And here's where I can't agree -- this is way too much of a "persecution" viewpoint for me. I see no evidence that anyone is "after" Gibson because he is a "morally good person", or any other "good person" for that matter. Nor do I think that any of the critics are particularly of the opinion that he is an unusually "good person". His being a "good person" or not seems irrelevant to the players in this drama. If anything, his critics are concerned that he may *not* be a good enough person to make the film without inciting bad feelings among some viewers. In short, I think you have their concerns upside down.
Is Hollywood or the world so cynical that they refuse to believe that something can be done because a good person felt it was the right movie to do?
That's entirely beside the point. Their concern is actually that "good person" or not, if he's not careful he may inflame anti-semitism given the nature of the subject matter. It's a touchy subject (just look at this thread, *cough*), and sure to raise passions (no pun intended) among viewers. It's a possible powderkeg, and some of the likely targets of the potential explosion are just nervous and wanting some reassurances from Gibson that he's going to be appropriately careful with the keg and the matches. And it doesn't help that his father was an arsonist, so to speak.
Nor does it help when Mel seems unresponsive, ambiguous, or flippant in his answers to people's concerns. The author's point is, in a nutshell, "Mel, you had a golden opportunity to calm things down, and you blew it and added fuel to the fire -- no one to blame but yourself for that one."
This is not about "targeting" people because they are "good".
Why are people so afraid of Christians anymore that if there is public display of love for the Lord that person then must be hiding some dark secret.
I haven't seen any evidence that that's anyone's motivation. And it's not like this came out of thin air, or that people were "looking" for any "dark secret". Possible backlash against Jews is a real concern for *any* Passion story (and has been for centuries), and Mel's father's known beliefs about Jews are clearly a very related topic, it's not like someone's concerned about his feelings about tax reform or whatever. Attitudes about Jews *is* the issue.
Then, it is up to any and everyone to do whatever is necessary to destroy that person.
"Everyone" is to "destroy" him, eh? Oookay.
Sorry, I don't agree, and I don't see anyone out to "destroy" him -- or "stop" the film or "keep" people from seeing it, which are other common claims about this fooforah.
The concern about how much he may have been influenced by his father's views, and how much that may have affected the portrayals in the film is a legitimate one, even if in the end it turns out to be unfounded. But until the film is released in its final form, it's not irrational to have concerns about whether it might be inflammatory or not, and to express those concerns in the hopes of either being reassured, or having some influence on ensuring that the film is done responsibly.
That seems to well explain all the flap that has been going on, and I see no need to invoke conspiracies to "destroy" people for being "good".
Well, that and the ADL's maneuvering for their own publicity.
Every negative thing I have read about Mel was due to quotes taken out of context
Again, I ask you to please substantiate this claim.
or quotes that were put in that are totally off subject to deceive the reader.
Issues of how sensitive he might be to the concerns of Jews, while making a film of a subject historically proven to be able to inflame some people against Jews, are hardly "totally off subject".
I am not falling for it.
I don't think anyone is trying to deceive you.
I don't care who the journalist is or what she/he wrote before.
My only reason for presenting passages of essays that the author has written before was to demonstrate how incorrect it was to naively denounce her as a "liberal", "socialist", "anti-Christian", "Trotskyite", etc. The quoted passages made it clear that she very often lambasted liberals and socialists, had no love for the old Soviet system, and stood up for Christians when they were being discriminated against.
I was under no illusion that the quality of prior essays necessarily made the current one any stronger or weaker.
In my first post on this thread, I took no issue with anyone for disagreeing with the essay or disagreeing with my views of it. My only point in that post was that rather than discussing the contents of the essay, I was disappointed that way too many Freepers chose to dismissively "label" the author based on what they imagined (incorrectly in most cases) her political or religious stance might be, or what opinion they presumed she might hold on another topic. Presuming and calling someone, say, a "liberal" for no reason other than a dislike of their opinion is not only an ad hominem insult, it's extremely sloppy thinking -- if it can even be called "thinking". I expect that sort of behavior at DU. I like to think we're better than that here -- and usually we are.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful post. While I didn't agree with all of it, I do very much appreciate it when anyone takes the time to explain their positions and reasons, and present them in a good-natured way. After our first few snipes at each other, it was good of you to set that aside and make the effort to start fresh. My hat's off to you.