Mel Gibson. When he got drunk, and he said those awful things. It made me angry. Not at him, mind you. But at the media. I mean sure enough, what he said wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t nice, or classy, or even truthful. It’s just that… he’s a very, very solid director. He’s a fine actor. I love all his movies, think he’s a man of tremendous talent. To see a drunken rant almost be his undoing, was awful.
I’ve been drunk before. Quite a lot, actually. When I was drunk I did and said some horrible things too. Jumped off and climbed on things I wasn’t supposed to. Peed on my best friend. Got into fights. Said horrible, horrible things to people. And about people. And about certain groups of people.
A lot of people are not aware of this, but no man develops in a vacuum. We are who we are, and what we are, because of our life experiences. Our childhood shapes us. Our experiences and the opinions and lessons of those we grow up with, shape us.
Mel’s father, Hutton Gibson, was a Holocaust denier. He had some very odd and messed up views, and he was very outspoken about them. His son did not share those views. But he still loved his father. His father, who raised him. Who no doubt told him about it. May, in fact, rarely have shut up about it. And the man lived to be 101, only dying in May 2020.
It’s a bit like that show Community. They had a character called Pierce Hawthorne, played by the great Chevy Chase. He very often and quite habitually said some offensive and racist things. But he had his heart in the right place, too. Anyway as it turns out he was the way he was, because even though he was a man in his seventies, he still had an ancient 100 year old father looming around him, influencing him.
It’s hard to break free from that. Mel Gibson did, in a way. He made a lot of movies that were lovely. And inclusive! Passion of the Christ? He had his cast speak Latin. Hebrew. Aramaic. Apocalypto, he cast solely Native Americans to make the movie as authentic as possible, helping many of them to a career in Hollywood after shooting ended. Are these the actions of a horrible racist bigot? I don’t think so. Just a damaged man with a vile father, who often drank too much and, when drunk, lost control of himself. Said nasty things he did not mean and felt awful about afterwards.
I was never angry at Mel Gibson. But I admit I was quite a bit angry at the press for disavowing the man wholesale as if one angry rant could undo all the good he had done, kill his entire reputation and more or less push for the man never to work again… glad he pulled through, got back in the director’s chair and continued making great movies like Hacksaw Ridge.
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