Mel Gibson

"What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"- drunk Mel Gibson to female cop

Mel, Mel, Mel. It is better to be thought an anti-Semite and a lout than to open your mouth and prove it. When I read that Mel Gibson was arrested for DUI in Malibu, California I didn't think twice about it. Drunk celebrity arrests seem to take place every day. Boring!

Well, Gibson's arrest has proven to be far from ordinary. It seems that not only was the actor/director wasted out of his mind, but he blamed Jews for "all the wars in the world." When I first saw a headline about his rantings I thought it must have been April Fools Day.

I wrote about The Passion of the Christ back on March 2, 2004. At the time, the film directed by Gibson was a box office hit and the cause of a controversy that lasted for months. Most of the controversy was the result of Jewish complaints of anti-Semitism in the film.

I thought that Gibson made the Jewish religious leadership greater villains than Pilate, but so it was in the gospels. I also felt that Christians received a bum rap, considered incapable of seeing this film without starting pogroms at the local multiplex.

Christians were as annoying as some of their Jewish brethren, treating Gibson as if he were their church pastor. There was nothing in the movie that Christians didn't know, yet the movie was treated as divine revelation.

Gibson sucked up to the Christian and political right to market his movie. He certainly needed the political muscle because his father's history as a holocaust denier certainly didn't help him.

I was willing to give Gibson fils the benefit of the doubt about his own beliefs. He couldn't very well publicly condemn his own father. Well, I should have followed my own dictum and been cynical about him.

He apologized for his behavior and the comments made during his arrest. He admitted to being an alcoholic.

"I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said."
One can only hope.