It was just the anti-Semitism talking (MemeMachineGo!)

A couple of commenters thought I was being unfair to conclude that Mel Gibson is an anti-Semitic nutcase and to shun his movies. Well, like Slate said:

Is Mel Gibson an anti-Semite? Until his recent drunk-driving arrest, the only way to investigate that hypothesis was to study Gibson’s controversial 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ, or to puzzle out why Gibson, in an interview with Peggy Noonan for Reader’s Digest, declined to put any distance between himself and his father’s crackpot view that the Holocaust never occurred. “[I]f someone denies the Holocaust one day and makes a film accusing Jews of Christ-killing the next day,” my Slate colleague Christopher Hitchens reasoned, “I have to say that if he’s not anti-Jewish then he’s certainly getting there.” There remained at least a theoretical possibility that this was all just a terrible misunderstanding.

That possibility no longer exists. The best case that can be made for Gibson’s belief system now is that he’s anti-Semitic only when he’s three sheets to the wind. And really, now. Are you in the habit of declaring, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world” when you get pie-eyed? Or simply of muttering, “Fucking Jews”? Or of asking your arresting officer, “Are you a Jew?”

There is a silver lining to this story. I think Gibson probably would have entered politics. I think this incident pretty much puts an end to that. But, then, the ablity of some on the right to act as apologist for unsavory characters has continually surprised me.

I will admit a morbid curiousity about what his take on the Holocaust would have been.

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Well, I quit drinking because I said and did shit while drunk that I absolutely and genuinely found abhorrent when sober. I wasn't being a hypocrite when sober; and the shit I did when drunk wasn't all there was to me. As someone said on another forum, the dark side of a person is a real part of the person, but not the whole of it. I'm still not a mind-reader; still don't know what's anyone else's heart. But while any part of the evidence against Mel isn't damning--his refusal to publicly slam his father, his Passion, his fondness for holocaust-denial code, his drunken rant--all of it together is a trout in the milk. Innocent until proven guilty; you were jumping the gun before, Zed; not so much now. Or, um, I was right before, not so much now. Pretty damning.

And even if he had left Jews out of it, nothing rankles me so much as a rich bully.

On a related note, I watched Merchant of Venice the other day; should we also shun Shakespeare and Pacino? How about Ezra Pound? Hemingway? TS Eliot? How about Noam Chomsky? Okay, okay, I already shun him--but still.

Can one morally draw a line between the art and the artist? Or if the artist is a scumbag, does one have to, morally, dismiss all of his art?

Which would be, I'm guessing, a LOT of art. It's something I go around and around about, myself. I suspect that many of us are more apt to forgive the artist when we love the art, and shun the art that we don't much like to start with. That seems to be the way I do it, anyway.

Posted by gmccrash on August 2 2006 16:30

I am opposed to the premise that art should be judged by the moral character of the artist. I am in favor of not giving financial support to bigots. If that means that there's some art I never experience, I can live with that.

"Braveheart" was a pretty good movie -- judgement of art

I won't pay to see "Apocalypto" -- not giving financial support to bigots

Different things.

(My use of "shun" in this entry was open to misinterpretation. I meant the same thing I said explicitly in the previous entry -- not giving financial support.)

Posted by Zed on August 2 2006 18:06

Yeah, I was thinking that too--that a good line might be dead artists vs living. Dead bigots can't donate their earnings to...whatever living bigots donate their earnings to. I was having the same problem recently with Victor Salvo's Peaceful Warrior, which I kind of wanted to see, except Salvo's a convicted child-raper, and I can't help but think that rich pedophiles must be more successful at getting away with it then poor ones. So that's on my off-list.

And then I run into a problem with someone like Michael Moore, a guy I really don't want to finance, but whose movies are interesting and culturally relevant. I guess one can always watch them on tv--though by then the larger conversation is over. I also tend to check out from the liberry books whose authors I don't necessarily want to give mooloo to...I guess that's another way. Both those feel kind of like cop-outs, but I'm not sure that they should. And only perusing art created by people I like and agree with seems kind of like a cop-out too. It's important to read crap you despise if for no other reason than to gain insight into the mind of the enemy...

Like I said, it's something that I go round and round on.

But as for Mel, if he would just say, "Clearly I have an anti-semitic dark side, and it's something I hate and struggle with," I'd have a lot more respect for and empathy with the guy. I've always thought there was a lot of self-loathing there--hence all the torture he takes in his movies. Could be wrong though; nothing cheaper than internet psychoanalysis.

Posted by gmccrash on August 2 2006 20:35

=v= Mel Gibson is featured in Who Killed the Electric Car?
(which I just blogged about elsewhere). I feel so much better knowing that he wants to drive an EV while drunk, and that he might thereby be more inclined to spout off about Detroit than Jews.

Posted by Jym on August 4 2006 06:13

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It was just the anti-Semitism talking

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