by Matt Barr

The trashin' of the Mel

I don't care about Mel Gibson. I don't care whether he's anti-Semitic. I find grave pronouncements that he'll never work again baffling and stupid. Is he running for something? Is he in a responsible position where his judgment affects the welfare of his community, state or country?

The normally sensible Christopher Hitchens has some projection issues, I think, in an essay in Slate where he accuses Gibson of having plenty. "Those who endorsed his previous obscene blockbuster are obliged to say something now or be ignored ever after," Hitch writes of The Passion of the Christ. How's that? (Note: As far as I know, I haven't blogged anything about The Passion ever.)

People who "endorsed" the movie, and in context he means those who seemed to nervously ignore the obvious anti-Semitism in the film, need to disavow it now? What's happened to the movie in the last week that's changed it?

Maybe he means people who supported Gibson as the filmmaker. But who cares? The movie The Passion of the Christ hasn't changed one bit. You have to have a fairly disturbing case of celebrity worship to think a film, book, poem, whatever somehow changes when the author goes nuts. Or to think that people can't view a film properly without being up to speed on its producer's opinions on things.

Hemingway's misogyny was pretty heavily evident in his work. Rudyard Kipling? And when it came to mercilessly mocking Jews on the stage or screen, Mel Gibson is a piker compared to William Shakespeare. (Tim Cavanaugh wrote the other day a fine post asking whether bigotry and such makes artists more interesting, not less.)

The point isn't "everybody does it," it's "who cares?" The same people pronouncing Mel Gibson's career DOA are the ones who listen in rapt attention when some boy band member holds forth on the perils of global warming.

If you have a long list of cinematic sins that Gibson's already committed and think badly of him to begin with, as Hitchens does, it doubly shouldn't matter if you find his off-camera behavior repulsive. "And I could have been brought around to thinking The Patriot was a great film, too, but Mel had to go diss the Jews." No.

So why savage him the way Hitchens does? Reading the screed, Hitchens was obviously deeply disturbed by The Passion (and notes almost hilariously that two Gibson productions stereotype Englishmen, too). He demands that anyone who endorsed the film recant or he'll ignore them forever. He anticipates a Gibson defense by noting, gotcha-fashion, that he spoke the way he did "because of his religion, not just his warped personality." Coming from someone other than Hitchens, you might wonder if the same indictment has ever been made of Islamic Jihadists. And on top of it all, they think that way because of their religion!

It seems as though Hitchens would rather Gibson's view of Christianity not be extant and that people quit buying into it, even tangentially by buying tickets into the theater to see his films. Well, ok. But again: Doesn't that mean he should be less concerned about anti-Semitic tirades than Gibson fans should? Is it simple Schadenfreude? A thrill at what's seen as objective validation of his opinions? Giddy anticipation that everyone else will now come around to his way of thinking (or else be ignored forever)?

Setting Hitchens aside, I will be the 5,486th blogger to note in conclusion that it would be great if the hew and cry over Gibson were matched when someone from Hezbollah or, say, the U.N. said the same things.

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