Melpocalypto

I met Mel Gibson once. Back in my Daily Bruin days, I only got to interview celebrities at "junkets," or round table sessions with as many as 12-15 journalists, typically held in a cramped room (not a suite...a room with a table in place of a bed...) at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons. Mel was one of the only subjects EVER to agree to a one-on-one interview with a student journalist. At the time, I thought that was pretty cool.

Even more cool, from the writerly standpoint, was his directness. This is not a guy to mince words. The movie we discussed was Payback, which he had taken away from writer/director Brian Helgeland to finish up himself. Generally, in that sort of uncomfortable situation, subjects would recite pre-approved spin from the studio's PR department:

"We just didn't see eye to eye on some issues, Brian wanted to move on to another project, blah blah blah."

Gibson gave me pretty much the whole story without pulling any punches, at least from his perspective. Furthermore, he went into detail about why Helgeland's version wasn't particularly good and what he thought of the guy's attitude towards criticism and all that kind of interesting, personal information. He's an intense guy but also gave me the impression of being really sincere about his work, and also particularly friendly and approachable for a guy who has been internationally famous since the early 80's.

He did not ask me if I was a Jew or bring up Judaism once. I wonder now, looking back, if that was on his mind at the time...

Lt. Steve Smith, in charge of the detective bureau for the Malibu/Lost Hills station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, confirmed to me just now that "the contents seem to be similar" between the official reports and the four pages posted by TMZ.com on the Internet alleging Mel Gibson made anti-Semitic slurs -- "fucking Jews" and "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" and asking the arresting deputy "Are you a Jew?" -- during his DUI arrest early Friday morning. Smith denied TMZ.com's charge that the sheriff's department was involved in a "cover-up" of Gibson's alleged anti-Semitic tirade detailed in deputy Jim Mee's first arrest report.

Anyone paying attention during Passion of the Christ probably noticed that Mel has kind of a Jew hang-up. At the time, I found the mainstream denial that the film was anti-Semitic to be kind of cute in a way...Americans are so distanced from that particular strain of pernicious historical European anti-Semitism, they don't even recognize it when they see it. Hook noses and flowing golden robes and long beards and general bloodthirstiness don't communicate "Jew" to them...Just "evil guy." It's kind of refreshing.

But others caught on to when the guy was really saying. Not even so much that "Jews killed Jesus," which is pretty much what the original story has to say. But "Jews are responsible for evil," as if villainy just radiated from their religious leaders and community in the same way that goodness radiated from the Savior.

And let's not forget Hutton Gibson, Mel's deranged father. Here's my favorite HG moment came when he did a phone interview on a random radio show called "Speak Your Piece." Here's his theory on the Holocaust:

"They claimed that there were 6.2 million [Jews] in Poland before the war, and they claimed after the war there were 200,000 - therefore he must have killed 6 million of them," he said. "They simply got up and left! They were all over the Bronx and Brooklyn and Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles."

Yes! This is totally reasonable! Also, some of them fell into a rabbit hole and found themselves in Wonderland or stumbled into Narnia via an oddly-placed piece of antique furniture! Which is really too bad for them, because I've heard they're not too keen on the Jews in Narnia. Only started admitting the Irish a few years back...

So, okay, his Dad's batshit insane. That's fine. He's allowed. Mel doesn't neccessarily agree with that stuff, right? Right?

Hutton Gibson in statements has decried the Holocaust as "fiction" and claimed there were more Jews in Europe after World War II than before. The younger Gibson, however, has repeatedly denied his movie was anti-Semitic. But the actor/director's views about his father's Holocaust denial have been under scrutiny. When asked by an interviewer in early 2004 whether the Holocaust happened, the actor / director / producer responded that some of his best friends ''have numbers on their arms,'' then added: ''Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps.'' But in the same interview, Gibson said his father, Hutton Gibson, had ''never lied to me in his life,'' and Holocaust scholars have cited those and other statements as evidence that he has failed to disassociate himself clearly from his father's views.
Two odd things...He says "some of them [died] in concentration camps." He doesn't say "were killed" or "death camps," indicating that it's possible he agrees with his father - that the Nazis had work camps, but didn't kill anyone, and that Worldwide Jewry has purposefully fudged the numbers to garner fraudulent sympathy. Also, the "my father never lied to me" thing. It could mean that he thinks his father's right about the Holocaust. Or it could me he thinks his father thinks he's right. In other words, it's not a lie if Hutton believes it, even if Mel knows it's kind of nutty.

I can't say for sure. But the evidence is starting to stack up against this guy. I just hope there's not some hook-nosed little weasely guy lending money to all the Mayans at a usurious rate in Apocalypto, or there's going to be some problems...

You have to wonder if this recent Israel-Lebanon tension is going to increase anti-Semitic sentiment in this country. I'm in kind of a hard spot...I vehemently disagree with Israeli policy and feel that they are trying to pull us into a disasterous larger war in the Middle East. (Yes, that's actually possible.) But I really hope Americans don't get too angry with Israel over this, because that tends to turn into more generalized anti-Jew sentiment after a little while. Look, I don't think Jews run the world or start all the wars or anything juvenile like that, but when Israel leads the way in fomenting a massive, horrifically bloody world conflict...well, it gives credence to these loopy, fringe ideas. Suddenly, the idea of angry Jews with an agenda doesn't seem so far paranoid and delusional.

And, of course, a beloved, popular celebrity who's seen as the mouthpiece for a large segment of the American religious population starts speaking these sorts of ideas, even drunk to a bunch of cops, it doesn't bode well for anyone.