Over on Rankin' Blog the question was raised if Mel Gibson's movie career would suffer reprecussions due to his anti-Jewish comments upon being arrested for drunk driving in Malibu. Thinking it over I realized I have a lot to say on this topic, and why I think not a lot will happen to Mel Gibson.

First, Mel Gibson is an industry. There are managers, secretaries, maids, accountants, independent film crews and, not least of all, publicists who depend on the continued popularity of the Mel Gibson brand for their meals. Already those publicists have won a pardon from the Anti-Defamation League, and I'm sure either low-key apologies or "that got blown out of proportion by the media who have a problem with my conservative views" explanations are forthcoming everywhere from The Tonight Show to Hannity & Colmes. Entertainment Tonight can know they'll still have at least two minutes of showtime filled with Mel Gibson.

The reprecussions will also be negligible because we've become used to looking around our entertainer's foibiles and focusing on the entertainment they bring us. For instance, I'm 92% certain my teenage hero Pete Townshend did pull his pants down and polished his monkey to the sight of little boys' wee-wees. Does that stop me from wanting to leap around the room when I hear "Bargain"? Unfortunately no, and I still love Live at Leeds. Woody Allen married his adopted daughter, yet as Howard Stern humorously pointed out you wouldn't hear anyone in Hollywood calling him out on it, and in fact they all continued to gush how they would love to be directed by Woody Allen. Halle Berry was charged with hit and run, Wynonna Ryder was convicted of shoplifting, Johnny Carson's first wife said he socked her in front of onlookers at a Hollywood party, Eddie Murphy and Danny Bonaduce have both been caught with transsexuals. The list goes on and on. We're a culture driven by commodities, not idealism, so we sweep it all under the mental rug in deference to our need to be titilated.

Thirdly, historically anti-Semitism doesn't seem to have hurt the careers of Wagner, Ford or Nietzche, either. Composer Richard Wagner is reputed to have said a few things that Mel might have nodded his head at on that Malibu roadside, and "The Ring" is even thought to have particularly inspired Hitler.

Henry Ford went much further than ranting on a roadside and put his thoughts in print, both in book and newspaper form. He aired his anti-Jewish ideas in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. Interestingly I had a Jewish boss who was bitching how he didn't like the Ford Town Car he had recently bought and when I said, "Why don't you get a Mercedes?" he said, "I'm a Jew! I don't drive German cars!" He was then happy to return the Town Car and get yet another Ford Crown Victoria. Henry is still generally thought to be a American icon and this aspect of his life was given very cursory mention in the few televised biographies I've seen.

Last but not least we can't forget Friedrich Nietzche, who went so far as to formulate a philosophy of slave and master morality, the slave morality having been conceived by Jewish slaves as a form of defense from their masters, so Nietzche wrote. The Will to Power was essential reading in Nazi and SS circles. Today Nietzche is probably the best-known name in philosophy outside Socrates, Aristotle and Plato.

So right or wrong, if Mel Gibson's next movie Apocalypto is entertaining, an audience will be there.

1 Comments:

 Arthur Willoughby said...

I loved Pete Townsend's excuse: Research. HA! Just come out and admit it: I was surfing for porn, saw a thumbnail that intrigued me, and next thing I knew I was actively seeking illegal pornography.

People appreciate honesty, even if it exposes ugliness.

Of course, as you point out, when it comes to celebrities they can lie like rugs and still remain popular. Mel's "mishap" will be forgotten when "Passion of the Christ II: Vengeance is Mine" gets released.

2:27 PM, August 08, 2006  

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