Posted on 10/26/2010 7:21:57 AM PDT by marshmallow
Hollywood has turned against him: he has been dropped from the cast of Hangover 2
Here we go again. Mel Gibson has been dropped from the cast of Hangover 2. He was to have had a cameo role as a tattooist – the role played in the original Hangover by that winsome rapist Mike Tyson – but at the weekend it emerged that his co-stars had decided that they could not appear alongside a man whose wickedness has dragged the good name of Hollywood through the mud. Over at Salon Matt Zoller Seitz thinks he detects double standards at play:
“There’s something about this Hangover 2 thing that doesn’t pass the smell test. It seems, at the very least, yet another example of the selective outrage that fuels controversy-driven entertainment coverage, and Hollywood posturing generally, with actors, directors, producers, studio bosses and other players working themselves into a righteous snit about certain people and offenses while giving others a pass.”
Go here for the whole thing.
The case against Mel is that he is anti-Semitic, homophobic, violent and alcoholic, and, to add insult to injury, a Roman Catholic. That’s a bad combination in Hollywood. Most Hollywood types can forgive alcoholism and a little domestic violence, but they draw the line at anti-Semitism and homophobia, and they don’t like Catholicism unless it comes from Bing Crosby and is wrapped in tinsel. No one would ever accuse Mel of wrapping his Catholicism in tinsel.
But hang on, is Mel Gibson really a Catholic? No, say his critics; he is a sedevacantist and therefore a schismatic and therefore not a Catholic. You didn’t hear much talk of that sort when The Passion of the Christ was released in 2004. Then it was Mel the conquering Catholic hero; now, in some quarters at least, it is Mel the Damned. When I last wrote about him three months ago, one reader declared in the combox: “I am sorry to say that Mel will go to Hell when he dies. He is NOT a Catholic and absolutely does not practice the true Catholic faith.” Bless that reader for having compassion enough to regret that Mel Gibson is doomed to spend an eternity in unspeakable misery.
But not even Google can tell us exactly what Mel’s religious position is. His friend the Jesuit scholar William Fulco says that Mel denies neither the Pope nor Vatican II. Mel Gibson is obviously a religious nut, however, and there must have been times when, as a loyal son, he embraced his father’s sedevacantism. It is possible that he remains a sede. But so far as I know he has never questioned, far less rejected, any part of Catholic teaching. That’s more than can be said for a lot of Catholics, including priests and bishops. Surveys show that most Catholics in the comfortable West do not accept the Church’s teaching on (for example) birth control. They don’t just ignore it – the way we all ignore moral teaching from time to time – they believe the Church is in error. So it could be that some of those accusing Gibson of sedecavantism may themselves be heretics, or at the very least recalcitrant dissidents. I am not defending sedevacantism – on the contrary – but I am suggesting that sedes are sometimes more faithful to Church teaching than respectable Catholics in the suburbs.
Whatever Mel’s status as a Catholic, however, he is in his anger and resentments a classic type of Catholic alcoholic. His anti-Semitism is very Catholic, too. Catholic anti-Semites are very rarely prejudiced against individual Jews, but have a “thing” about Jews collectively. G K Chesterton loved individual Jews, and was outspoken in his condemnation Hitler’s anti-Semitism, but he was able to write:
“I am fond of Jews
Jews are fond of money
Never mind of whose
I am fond of Jews
Oh, but when they lose
Damn it all, it’s funny.”
Some might say that those lines are quite innocent, but I am not sure many Jews would.
Mel himself obviously has nothing against Jewish people. His agent, Alan Nierob, is Jewish. Nierob is also the agent of Liam Neeson, who has been picked to replace Gibson in the cameo role in Hangover 2 – pending, as Nierob has said, “clearance of cast and crew background check”. Probably the only sane response to this is to laugh.
All the same, I have sympathies with Mel Gibson, if only because I, too, am an alcoholic, and sense that if I were to go back on the booze I might soon find myself doing Gibson turns. My perhaps rather pious hope is that Mel will sober up – whether or not he is drinking now, he is not sober – and make his peace with the Church. He can after all do that and continue to hear Mass in the old rite. First, though, he must learn moderation. That’s more than I have ever managed to do, but I am persuaded that the only antidote to booze, anger and bad religion is love of God and neighbour, especially when your neighbour is also your enemy.
So you admit causing division with his father was part of the agenda. It was obvious enough.
All he had to say is “My father said/believes some things that I don't necessarily believe.”
Mel should not have to publicly split with his father to prove himself to Hollywood or anybody else.
That is hardly a public split. I can say now with absolutely no embarrassment or hesitation that my father says and believes many things that I do not necessarily believe. I have not just publicly split with my father, I have declined to endorse his views as my own.
The relationship between parents and children in traditionalist culture is much different from that relationship among most modern-minded Americans. Traditional Catholicism is a traditionalist culture. It is Mel’s business if he wishes to avoid a public split with his father.
But his equivocation about “some” Jews dying you would no doubt find sickening if it came from someone on the left as well as their endorsement as something they believe and is truth their fathers denial of the Holocaust.
To me it doesn't matter that it is Mel. There is a bridge to far where I no longer think well of you.
Shame to, because he is such a likeable guy and I loved him as William Wallace and Mad Max as well as in The Patriot, and I enjoyed both “The Passion of the Christ” and “Apacalypto” and no doubt I will watch his next movie.
But if people don't want to work with him, that is now his cross to bear.
That those people JUST worked on a movie with an unrepentant (did you see “Tyson”?) and convicted RAPIST, just makes it that much more amusing.
Maybe next time they will work with Roman Polanski the convicted child molester AND Mike Tyson the convicted rapist! But not Mel Gibson. He so crazy!
;)
Something between apathy and introspection.
Christians are not supposed to overly concern themselves with things of this world. Those who love Christ well are unconcerned with property, those who love property too well maybe unconcerned with Christianity, either way is apathetic towards the statement “Christians are fond of property”. Someone who wants to be Christian but is fond of property may find this a point for introspection. The individual must make a choice between Christian identity and fondness for property.
So far as I know, there is no dichotomy between Jewishness and fondness of property. Because both Jewishness and love of property can be unified aspects the same individual, the poem stings with insult.
Before you waste anymore time on this Romney defending/anti-conservative troll, you may want to just look at his posting history.
The sting of insult inverted. Everything you know is wrong — that is a good starting point to allow for the beginning of wisdom, which is Fear of G-d.
G-d made this world and all in it for a reason! To ignore the proper use of all things is a deep callousness to the G-dly.
Money is mentioned early on in the Bible. There is a reason for that. Of all things it is a coin — a half shekel — that G-d demands that his Chosen Ones be counted. The Israelites, fleeing the strictures and hedonism of Egypt are enumerated by means of a half-shekel — that is money. Each tribe, big or small, wealthy or not so, is required to come up with the same amount of offering to outfit the Camp’s Holy Tent of Meeting.
Money is really quite a powerful thing, to be so honored in use.
Those who deny that ‘property’ and ‘money’ are important to safeguard and properly use are in denial of a fundamental G-dly requirement of our lives in this World.
Are there moral or mental health risks associated with money?
Romney?
The guy should be political dead meat with the albatross of Massachecets Medical care around his neck.
If you mean the argument that if you say you are not voting for him because he is a Mormon you sound like a bigot, well that isn’t exactly defending Romney - just saying that going after someone on his religion is stupid, unnecessary and counterproductive.
And my posting history is quite conservative, Palin supporting, small Government of limited and enumerated powers that respects the natural rights of man given to us by our Creator. I am a veteran of the USAF and support and defend the Constitution.
It is Mel Gibson who said of our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq about his movie “Apacalypto”, that “The fear-mongering we depict in the film reminds me of President Bush and his guys”.
Loon!
Off course! It’s seen as the biggest stressor in marriages. But it is not the “root of evil”. Since money is the medium of so many social exchanges, problems in dealing with those are often cloaked as money problems.
For example, expensive indulgences and out of control spending are weaknesses of impulse control and inner strength, and not really money problems, but they most often evidence as “a “money problem”. Delusions, selfishness, the various degrees of lying to one’s spouse can all appear as “money” difficulties.
Money is not. It is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil. Wholesome dedication to one's work often results in a well-earned monetary reward, but the LOVE of money is a blindness that results in destruction. It makes no sense to store up ill-gotten riches in this world that will be used as a judgement for punishment in the next (and often in this world as well). Unfortunately, this LOVE is the greatest of temptations and ruins society by fueling chronic debt, crime, intrigue, and war. Money is very powerful indeed and, in any sizable quantity, must be handled with great dispassion and care.
Mel Gibson bump
Mel Gibson has never left His Church, the CouncLIAR pretenders left him beginning in 1958. The halls of the Vatican have been clouded by evil ever since. May God continue to bless the Traditional Roman Catholic faithful.
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