So I was chatting over IM today with my friend Jason about the whole Mel Gibson thing.
“It’s too bad,” he said. “I really liked his Mad Max movies.”
The implication being, with Gibson’s anti-Semitism front and center, what Jew will want to watch his movies anymore, much less buy them on DVD or go to see any new works of his? That sounds about right to me.
I’ve enjoyed a number of Mel Gibson’s movies over the years. Mad Max isn’t my thing, but I have seen the entire Lethal Weapon franchise (#1 and #3 are the best), plus at least 8 or 9 other films he’s starred in. His Hamlet was excellent; so was Maverick. It’s not every actor who can do a good job in such wildly different roles. And until this past weekend, I was prepared to overlook any possible private beliefs Gibson had in favor of his obvious talent. Even during all the hubbub about The Passion… I was prepared to take him at face value and believe that he didn’t have any real deep-seated issues with Jews.
Now? Not so much. Alcohol can certainly encourage a person to say things that they wouldn’t have said when sober, but to launch into a full-out tirade against Jews; well, it had to have come from somewhere. The booze didn’t make him an anti-Semite, it just brought it out into the open. At least, that’s how it seems to me.
I’m not going to be able to enjoy looking at his face any time in the near future. It’s like when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor; reality crowds in so much that it’s hard to suspend disbelief and enjoy the show. And why should I spend my time and my hard-earned money on someone who has so little good to say about people like me?
On the other hand, I like Wagner’s music too, and not only did he hate Jews, but he was also one of Hitler’s favorite composers. The difference being, Wagner is not around to get rich off the money I pay for his CDs, and Gibson is still very much alive and kicking.
Does that mean I’m in a self-imposed lifelong Gibson boycott? I don’t know. Maybe a few years from now, I’ll feel differently; we’ll see what happens. But for now, as much as I’ve been a fan, I’ll find other entertainers to spend my time and money on.
Tags: anti-Semitism, Mel Gibson
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It is definitely an excuse to blame it on the alcohol. As you say, alcohol doesn’t make you do out of character things, it just relaxes your usual reticence.
(Favorite Mel Gibson movie: The Year of Living Dangerously.)
Maybe someday someone can explain to me what we Jews have done to the world to be so universally hated. It would be nice to be able to give my kid an answer when he looks me in the eyes and asks “daddy, why do they hate us?” Something better than “I don’t know, son, I don’t know. They just do.”
This act of Mel Gibson is a bad one. But we don’t have to forget that first of all he is a normal man and after that a great artist. So I think we can excuse him.
Certainly, I’m not going to pay money to see a Mel Gibson movie ever again. Perhaps, I’ll watch Apocalypto if it ever endus up on cable.
Still, there are a number companies I’ll never give my money to because of their history of antisemitism or because of their direct involvement with the Holocaust. I don’t understand, for example, why any Jews buy Porsche, Volkswagens and Audis — Ferdinand Porsche (the designer of the Volkswagen) was the designer of the mobile gas chamber used in the Holocaust and when he ran the Volkswagen factory during the 1940’s, many Jews were used as forced labor.
http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/porsche.shtml
This is something that is very well documented and not a lot of Jews know about. Henry Ford was a major league anti-semite as well.
I own a Mercedes, but its 15 years old, and also I respect the Daimler-Chrysler company for providing war reparations to Israel in the form of reduced price automobiles — that’s why almost all the taxis in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are Mercedes. If the Volkswagen/Audi/Porsche group had any pride they would do the exact same thing.