Mad Mel

So what do I think of the whole Mel Gibson mess anyway?

I tend to stay out of celebrity-related stories unless it involves politics, but the level of vitriol aimed at Gibson is so high at this moment (and rightly so) that I suppose it’s incumbent on me to say something (I think part of the reason people are so POed is that this mess with Gibson is taking place at the same time as the Israel-Hezbollah War).

Yes, Gibson has spouted his opinion on the Holocaust using wording that comes right from web sites that deny that the Holocaust took place, which is reprehensible. And I probably will never see “The Passion Of The Christ” now with knowledge of the warped version of religiosity practiced by the person primarily responsible for it (and also because Christ’s life was a lot more complicated and meaningful than something that can be supposedly summed up by two hours of torture – to be honest, I wasn’t too keen on seeing the movie anyway for that reason).

However, I would like everyone to step back and consider something for a moment.

Around the time that Gibson was involved in the “Lethal Weapon” series of movies, he professed that he was a fan of The Three Stooges (even going into some Stooges schtick before he blew up a fish tank in the second movie, trying to scare the South African bad guys in the process). Some time after that (a couple of years after “Braveheart” as I recall), Gibson made what turned out to be a great telemovie about the Stooges, with Michael Chiklis of “The Shield” and other roles playing Curly Howard.

As you can read from this link, Moe (Harry Moses Horwitz), Larry (Louis Feinberg, born in Philadelphia), Shemp (Samuel Horwitz), and Curly (Jerome Horwitz) were Jewish. And while I admit that I don’t know if Gibson’s conversion to this bizarro belief system of his took place after he made the movie, I think it’s important to keep this in mind.

I don’t know if Gibson’s career will ever completely recover from this incident, since all of the scavenger columnists will start unearthing every little real or imagined grievance against Gibson now. And I’m not saying this to stick up for Gibson (I don’t know what he said when he was pulled over, and frankly, I don’t care at this moment). I’m just asking that we consider the fact that, if Gibson is truly an anti-Semite now, at least he hasn’t been that way for his whole life.

By the way, speaking of scavenger columnists, what a class move on the part of the Courier Times today to print a picture of Gibson with a Hitler mustache and haircut in the middle of a Cal Thomas “hit piece.” Nothing like trivializing one of the darkest chapters in human history by trying to link it to a screwed-up movie star (the propaganda machine working overtime on this one).

Stuff like this is part of the reason why, though Hezbollah is run by an evil bunch bent on Israel’s destruction, I’m not terribly sympathetic to the adversary in that war either.