Posted on 02/25/2004 3:29:59 PM PST by SauronOfMordor
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 25 — Mel Gibson's provocative new film, "The Passion of the Christ," is making some of Hollywood's most prominent executives uncomfortable in ways that may damage Mr. Gibson's career.
Hollywood is a close-knit world, and friendships and social contact are critical in the making of deals and the casting of movies. Many of Hollywood's most prominent figures are also Jewish. So with a furor arising around the film, along with Mr. Gibson's reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the Holocaust mostly fiction, it is no surprise that Hollywood — Jewish and non-Jewish — has been talking about little else, at least when it's not talking about the Oscars.
Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the principals of DreamWorks, have privately expressed anger over the film, said an executive close to the two men.
The chairmen of two other major studios said they would avoid working with Mr. Gibson because of "The Passion of the Christ" and the star's remarks surrounding its release.
Neither of the chairmen would speak for attribution, but as one explained: "It doesn't matter what I say. It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I won't support anything he's part of. Personally that's all I can do."
The chairman said he was angry not just because of what he had read about the film and its portrayal of Jews in relation to the death of Jesus, but because of Mr. Gibson's remarks defending his father, Hutton Gibson. Last week in a radio interview the elder Mr. Gibson repeated his contention that the Holocaust was "all — maybe not all fiction — but most of it is." Asked about his father's Holocaust denial in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC, the movie star told her to "leave it alone."
The other studio chairman, whose family fled European anti-Semitism before the Holocaust, was less emphatic but said, "I think I can live without him." But others said there would be no lasting backlash against Mel Gibson. "If the movie works, I don't think it will hurt him," said John Lesher, an agent with Endeavor. "People here will work with the anti-Christ if he'll put butts in seats." Mr. Lesher added, "He put his own money where his mouth is. He invested in himself."
As Mr. Lesher implied, Hollywood is also a place of businesspeople, and Mr. Gibson is a proven movie star, popular with audiences. There are few actors with that kind of bankability, no matter their personal views. Mr. Gibson is also a capable director. So some of the initial reactions to his film may fade over time.
Mr. Gibson not only directed and helped write the $30 million film, but he also paid for it, including production and marketing costs, out of his own pocket, which Hollywood has filled.
As an actor and successful director, from "Mad Max" (1979) through "Lethal Weapon" (1987) and its sequels to the Oscar-winning "Braveheart" (1995), Mr. Gibson has long been a Hollywood pet. But he has also been known as a prankster and a self-confessed abuser of various substances. Many in the relentlessly secular movie industry see his recent religious conversion — he practices a traditionalist version of Roman Catholicism — as another form of addiction.
Last Friday the media billionaire Haim Saban, former owner of the Fox Family Channel, sent a concerned e-mail message to friends about Mr. Gibson and his father.
The message forwarded an article by the journalist Mitch Albom calling on Mr. Gibson to repudiate his father's denial of the Holocaust. Mr. Saban sent the article to, among others, Roger Ailes, who heads Fox News; Norman Pattiz, who runs the Westwood One radio network; and Michael R. Milken, the securities felon turned philanthropist.
Amid the daily dealings of Hollywood, the film and the star have been fodder for unfavorable gossip. Dustin Hoffman has talked to friends about what he called Mr. Gibson's "strangeness" during the ABC interview. The producer Mike Medavoy said Mr. Gibson's religious zealotry made him feel uncomfortable. Mr. Hoffman is Jewish; Mr. Medavoy is the child of Holocaust survivors.
"One question is, `What propelled him to make the movie about the passion of Christ?' " Mr. Medavoy said. "It makes me a little squeamish. What makes me squeamish about religion in general is that people think they have the answer: `I think my God is the right God.' How do you argue against that?"
Interesting. Such things being said by conservatives would be construed as anti-Semitic. I suppose it all depends on who is saying it, and for what purpose.
So with a furor arising around the film, along with Mr. Gibson's reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the Holocaust mostly fiction
Perhaps Ms Waxman wants Gibson to crucify his father in public.
Asked about his father's Holocaust denial in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC, the movie star told her to "leave it alone."
...and I suppose to 'Diane Sawyer' fans, this equates to a tacit approval of Nazism by Mel Gibson.
Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the principals of DreamWorks, have privately expressed anger over the film, said an executive close to the two men.
....that's okay. I'm pretty angry about the slop you two peddle for a living.
Neither of the chairmen would speak for attribution, but as one explained: "It doesn't matter what I say. It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I won't support anything he's part of. Personally that's all I can do."
The only thing you support is increasing your bank account. I don't see much else in your work.
"If the movie works, I don't think it will hurt him," said John Lesher, an agent with Endeavor. "People here will work with the anti-Christ if he'll put butts in seats."
Right.
Many in the relentlessly secular movie industry see his recent religious conversion — he practices a traditionalist version of Roman Catholicism — as another form of addiction.
I see more 'addictive' behavior promoted by the Hollywood swill machine.....and this is from a Protestant.
What makes me squeamish about religion in general is that people think they have the answer: `I think my God is the right God.' How do you argue against that?"
..........perhaps a better question is 'how does one detect a counterfeit $20 bill?' You don't spend time trying to identify every possible variation that a counterfeit may present you with.
You learn to recognize the characteristics of a real bill; any fake is easy discerned at that point.
Interesting point. I wonder if a congregation or two out there is hoping to cash in on the film's coattails, though. The contrast between what is represented in this film and a crystal cathedral full of bozos running mixers and lights to make themselves feel good is a stark one. The insatiable quest for wealth and power is not easily killed. The Subject and Object of this film alone is up to the task.
It is just the official website for the movie...sheesh...
Thanks for checking it out for me...I've been there many times.
Half the stars in Hollywood, and many directors and producers, have their own independent production companies (not studios).
It doesn't mean much. Often just an office, and maybe one or two staffers.
The power is in distribution, which the big studios control. There are some indie distributors, include micro-distributors like Newmarket, but they're fly-by-night, often leading precarious existences from year to year.
They can't plan longterm, because they don't know when, or if, they'll next luck out on a big hit, like Passion, or Pi, or The Blair Witch Project.
Conservatives should join with "progressives" in opposing big media consolidation. For more media diversity, including conservative voices, we need to break up Viacom, Disney, News Corp, Time-Warner, etc.
No, Hollywood did not fill Mr. Gibson's pockets - - the movie-going, ticket-buying public did.
If I wanted to make a movie that made Jews look bad (and I don't), I could do one helluva job. What on earth could an Oscar-winning director like Gibson do?
Morons and whiners.
Didn't they do that to Ronald Reagan? that worked well didn't it?
But Mel is not a denier. Every time he's been asked, he has said that the Shoah is fact, that it is undeniable. He condemns it in unmistakeable words. Yet the writer left that out, letting readers draw the implication that Mel is a holocaust denier because he won't savage his father for teh edification of TV voyeurs.
For the record, I don't believe most Jews, in Hollywood or out, are looking to harm Gibson for this film. I do know many Jews who have heard the press's drumbeat of propaganda on this, and who are legitimately fearful that the film will lead to anti-Semitism.
I think SauronOfMordor is right in framing this as, not the Jewish/Christian conflict that the writer Waxman tries to incite, but as an issue of the Hollywood LEFT, which has an established religion of militant fundamentalist atheism, against normal people of whatever faith.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
ROTFLMAO
Same thing with my sister-in-law. She called me this evening at 7:30 and I thought she had a cold. She said she had been crying because she saw "The Passion", and that was at 12:30 in the afternoon. She said people were openly wailing in the theater. She had me in tears and I haven't even seen it yet.
Whereas here, it's just foolish. Still, the whole Holocaust Denial nonsense tries to blame Mel for his father's foolishness -- which is as illogical as blaming the Jews alive today for the actions of other Jews in other places who have been dead and buried for two millennia. Both Christians and Jews believe that humans have free will and independent souls, so where's the beef?
It's interesting to compare how Hollywood reacts to Gibson, whose father is accused of being an apologist for Nazis, to Hollywood's treatment of Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose father *was* a Nazi. I mean a real, swastika-wearing, goose-stepping, Hitler-heiling Nazi in the flesh, and a member of the SS.
I guess it's because Arnold, like Geffen, Katzenberg, Medavoy, et al., doesn't make violent films.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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