I thought the preferred spelling was 'heeb'.

I particularly liked Gibson's statement that John Lennon deserved to be killed (not in the Radar story you linked to, but also in Eszterhaus' letter). What a piece of shit.

Whoops, I googled. I guess that was just the magazine. I guess that's the kind of ignorance that comes from not growing up around anti-semites.

Joe Eszterhas is not exactly a Boy Scout himself. They deserve each other.

Gibson has fallen off a very long cliff and is sure to hit the bottom soon.

@4, to me that's what makes it great. There's nobody like a famous asshole to call out another famous asshole.

I will read this... But you will blow me first.

Antisemitism makes for very effective trolling. You don't even have to be clever about it. More effective than insisting women belong in the kitchen, or that slavery was good for the blacks.

Nothing about sugar tits so I'm moving on

Loath as I am to defend Mel Gibson on any level, the fact remains: There are just SO MANY reasons not to make a movie with Joe Eszterhas. Do we really need to seize upon anti-Semitism as the only possible explanation?

I thought Gibson had been redeemed and forgiven - he made that movie, right?

Mel Gibson is just like my father was. This ingrained hate for Jews was taught to him by a church with a long history of teaching hate. I was shocked even as a child that people could think this way. And horrified when they wanted me to believe the same things. Wasn't Jesus himself a Jew? This kind of disonance doomed my relation with my religion and my father.

The fun part is that Mel Gibson is a famously antisemitic doctrinaire ultramontane Catholic - one who believes Vatican II was Wrong, and each Jew bears responsibility for killing his God. And he proposes to do a film honoring the Maccabees.

Why "fun"? Because it raises the topic of what happened to the Maccabees - or, rather, what happened to their mortal remains. For almost two thousand years, the Catholic Church claimed to be holding them in a place of honor on public display in Saint Peter's, in Rome. This even though these people weren't Christian icons - they're Jewish nationalist figures. It's as if the British Museum, rather than holding on to and displaying the Elgin Marbles, instead did the same with the remains of Pericles or of Solon. Needless to say, Mel's beloved Church hasn't attempted to restore its artifacts to the Jewish state. Maybe it was too busy with all those choirboys.

@12,

Didn't the Maccabees predate Jesus? So wouldn't that classify them as the "good" kind of Jew (like Abraham, Moses, and David) rather than the "bad" kind (the ones Catholics had been trying to convert or kill for a millennium)?

@12,

Although I do agree with you that Gibson doing a movie about Masada would be very strange indeed.

@#14
Gibson doing a movie about Masada would indeed be weird (though I think that for a different auteur the revolt involving Masada is a better story), but Masada is separated by the Maccabees by a couple of centuries.

So here are my questions: We have established that Mel Gibson is a repugnant, sexist, racist, loutish, antisemitic jerk. Can you ignore that, push it to the back of your mind, and still enjoy his movies, if you ever did? Can you acknowledge his talent as a filmmaker? Are his repulsive perspectives reflected in his movies? And should Hollywood turn a cold shoulder and blacklist him, to punish him?

Personally, I've only seen fragments of his movies, but what I've seen, I must confess, looks good. If someone has talent, if Leni Riefenstahl has talent, I'll acknowledge it. Billy Friedkin doesn't have a warm reputation, lets say, but I can't deny The French Connection. I've yet to see Mel Gibson make a movie about the Zionist or Holocaust conspiracy (as he sees it). When he does, I'll draw the line, but until then, I'm willing to let him continue making a living.

16: For me, watching the films of Mel Gibson is like drinking water from the sewer—I'll do it if I'm dying of thirst, but until then, gross.

@#16
There's lots of solid entertainment out there, far more than I could hope to consume while maintaining a semblance of productivity. I might reconsider if I heard they'd done something incomparably awesome, but so far I'm perfectly happy to funnel neither the money nor the social acceptance from my ticket sales or Netflix viewings to the movies of Mel Gibson or Roman Polanski. I'm fine with my entertainers being flawed, even with their being quite impressive assholes, but vicious bigotry or being a fugitive from child rape is a bridge too far.

@17, Gallipoli, though. I watched it the other day pretending it was back at the time of its release, when Gibson could have become anybody, and it was glorious.

@16.. thinking of good mel gibson movies...pauses
*crickets* ..oh yeah the old ones 'tim', gallipoli', .... pauses again.... *crickets*
....ummmm.. i enjoyed 'signs'..... *crickets*

@18 and @ 18.. but please don't mention don't mention mel gibson in the same cinematic breath as friedkin or polanksi. .gbson's not in the same league by 2 or 3 universes..

ummm .. @18 and @ 16

@#21
No argument. But on the other hand, being a fugitive from a conviction for child rape rather trumps being a vicious bigot.

Hebrews and Shebrews...

Mad Max is one of my guilty pleasure movies however I generally avoid his movies because honestly he's just not that great an actor and is a worse director. He seems to be attracted to directing movies that murder history (Braveheart, the Patriot, etc) when it's really not necessary. Braveheart is the perfect example, William Wallace was a compelling enough figure that if they had tried for some historical accuracy they would have had a far better movie. Gibson couldn't even manage to get the date right the movie takes place in 1280 (Wallace was born around 1272 making him a rather mature looking 8 year old). I don't think accuracy is necessary for a period piece to be good, one of my favorite movies is Quills and it plays very loose with de Sade's life, but you'd better have good narrative reasons for deviating wildly from the real events.

The fact that he's an asshole, antisemitic, racist, mysogynist is extra reason to avoid his movies but the fact most of them suck is primary.