Mel Gibson's New Film, The Pashern a' the Chrisssshhtht
Best week ever for pissed celebrities; Mel Gibson is arrested for driving while pished, and the resulting feeling of indignity opens up his nastiest side with a tide of anti-Semitic abuse.
It's a bit of a grim story, really. I've never liked Gibson - his early Peter Weir films are about the only things I can stand to see him in, before that lethal patina of self-righteousness hardened his face. The later offences - the 'funny' gay-bashing in Braveheart, the revelation of a Holocaust-denying dad with his own Vatican II-decrying church, the noxious might-means-right anti-Christian worldview of The Passion of the Christ - merely shored up that dislike without really changing it.
But this whole incident is a bit sordid and unpleasant. Gibson's conversion to born-again Christianity was purportedly spurred by his alcoholism, and his interviews surrounding The Passion... made big play of how it had "saved" him from this fate. (He also became notorious for drawing a fast and hard veil over any inquiries about his dad, and later put a TV miniseries about the Holocaust into production. It will be interesting to see how that turns out, to say the least) It's sad to see someone - even someone I don't like - slip back into an old addiction, and it's extremely sad to see the legacy of racist brainwashing on a person.
Much funnier is the following smackdown of Lindsay Lohan from that reliable fountain of celebrity dirt, The Smoking Gun. Poor Felicity Huffman, who's trapped in the middle of this set and will probably have to endure thousands of "Wow, how drunk was your co-star?" interviews when the film is released... but tell me you didn't smirk just a little bit. And it's OK, she's young, she'll learn. Or go on a reality TV show, whichever.
It's a bit of a grim story, really. I've never liked Gibson - his early Peter Weir films are about the only things I can stand to see him in, before that lethal patina of self-righteousness hardened his face. The later offences - the 'funny' gay-bashing in Braveheart, the revelation of a Holocaust-denying dad with his own Vatican II-decrying church, the noxious might-means-right anti-Christian worldview of The Passion of the Christ - merely shored up that dislike without really changing it.
But this whole incident is a bit sordid and unpleasant. Gibson's conversion to born-again Christianity was purportedly spurred by his alcoholism, and his interviews surrounding The Passion... made big play of how it had "saved" him from this fate. (He also became notorious for drawing a fast and hard veil over any inquiries about his dad, and later put a TV miniseries about the Holocaust into production. It will be interesting to see how that turns out, to say the least) It's sad to see someone - even someone I don't like - slip back into an old addiction, and it's extremely sad to see the legacy of racist brainwashing on a person.
Much funnier is the following smackdown of Lindsay Lohan from that reliable fountain of celebrity dirt, The Smoking Gun. Poor Felicity Huffman, who's trapped in the middle of this set and will probably have to endure thousands of "Wow, how drunk was your co-star?" interviews when the film is released... but tell me you didn't smirk just a little bit. And it's OK, she's young, she'll learn. Or go on a reality TV show, whichever.