Amen! This thread alone proves her point - criticizing her looks as much as what she had to say. Debate the movie, disagree with her viewpoint, but what do her looks have to do with it?
You don't understand. If you disagree with the majority here it is whining. If you agree, it is thoughtful discourse.
First, it's not a "reasonable essay" but a stilted hit piece couched in lies and hatred. You can't see that, therefore there is no reason to discuss that aspect of this controversy with you. It's obvious, yet you ignore it. I won't convince you otherwise and I won't listen to your arguments based on your statement above. Your bald statement, with absolutely no justification or rationale provided, makes it plain that you don't want a debate, you simply want to accuse others and pat yourself on the back for being the "good guy." Thanks but no thanks.
I will therefore limit myself to your "whining" question.
She absolutely has the right to spill her hate speech drivel and even the right to get paid for it if someone is stupid enough to do so. Likewise her critics have the absolute right to disagree with her and point out how dishonest she is being. Her posing becomes whining when she pours out hate filled filth and then complains when anyone dares to challenge her on it.
A critic can't complain about criticism. They can argue against it, but they can't complain that it's unfair when their own arguments are answered in kind. A hater can't try to twist confrontation of their hate filled words into hate speech.
This is liberal attack politics 101, straight out of Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals (Hillary's play book). Accuse your enemies of doing what you already have done. Any answer to your crimes is immediately labeled as that crime. Look at what the dims are trying to do with the gay marriage debate. Look at Kerry's attacks on Bush... any of them! Mr. Gibson's hate spewing "critics" are accusing him, and all Christians, of hate crimes for daring to put forward as truth the central belief of their faith.
"How dare they! Saying Jesus was the Messiah, showing how He suffered and died (while ministering to His own community, the Jews, no less) to pay for our sins, rose from the dead as proof of His identity and therefore fulfilled the Prophets is automatically antisemitic hate speech. Silence them!" Yah. That's a good review of a movie. No reasonable person could possibly challenge that without being a Nazi.
Many Jews have to see Christianity as "hate speech" because it inherently tells them that they have denied and betrayed God for 2000 years. If they don't feel that way, if they accept as "OK" the central Christian story, then they're guilty, not of deicide (the "blood liable" they accuse Mel Gibson of committing, the central argument of this "review" accusing him of antisemitism) but of hypocrisy and denying their own faith when their prophecies were fulfilled. Pagans hated Jews because they said that there were no other gods but God. Christians can't accept Mohamed for similar reasons (though obviously I agree with this position), but interestingly condemn ourselves for that very human reaction as being "intolerant." I wonder if that has anything to do with God's message of forgiveness that Jesus brought us? Muslims openly hate and call for the death of all non-Muslims because they can't tolerate any other possibilities. That doesn't make those that disagree with them wrong or evil, simply for disagreeing.
Just my two cents. The review is certainly not whining. I'll tke the critic at her word, that she has recahed her conclusions with thoughtful deliberation, and has accurately presented her opinion.
But using the same forum to present the fact that many people were put off by her review? That is whining. Maybe even vindictive, you know, tit-for-tat?