What the Hell Mel?

There are some things that are just inexplicable in life: the Horsehead Nebula, the Cubs being unable to win a World Series in over a 100 years, and why people find The Three Stooges funny.

Mel Gibson falls into the inexplicable category.

Over the last five years he single handedly has become one of the most polarizing figures in Hollywood and that's saying a lot considering we've had to deal with Paris Hilton's "acting" career. To say old Mel has run into some public relations problems in his time is like saying Carl Palladino has some minor issues with homosexuals. Let's run down the laundry list shall we? Ahem:

December 1991: Makes anti-gay statements in a Spanish magazine called El Pais

February 2004: Passion of the Christ is released sparking debate over anti-Semitism

July 2006: Arrested for DUI with an open container and stating to the police officer, "Fucking Jews...the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." (The arresting officer was Jewish)

July 2010: Mel is recorded by his girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva making racist comments saying that if she was "raped by a pack of niggers" she would be to blame. Also there were rumors during that month that he referred to Latinos as "wetbacks."

Um....yeah.

Obviously this behavior is absolutely deplorable. For a long time I tried to defend Gibson but if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably a raging bigot. In the end it looks like South Park maybe got it right. (FYI--I still don't believe there is anything anti-Semitic about The Passion of the Christ. Several of the lead characters in the film were Jews. I find it highly unlikely they'd agree to be in movie of this magnitude if they thought it was in anyway anti-Semitic.)

However, Mel's actions raise an interesting question. Should an actor's personal life detract from A) their movies or B) negatively influence a possible acting award? The website joblo.com raised this issue a few weeks ago in an article I read and I thought it warranted another look. The reason I bring this up is because very soon Mel Gibson will be coming out with a film directed by Jodi Foster called The Beaver. Insert joke here. Hey insert...beaver... ah well moving on. It follows the exploits of the CEO of a toy company with mental problems who uses a beaver puppet to communicate better with his family. As bat-shit crazy insane as that sounds the early scuttlebutt is that Gibson's performance is nothing short of brilliant and could earn him an Academy Award nomination.

The short answer to the question for me is: no. An actor's personal life should not detract from his personal accomplishments or films. It's like that with various cultural situations. Wagner was a raging anti-Semite but his music is still loved by many people worldwide. Ty Cobb was a dyed in the wool bigot but it doesn't make his accomplishments on the baseball field any less incredible. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves (and apparently liked to get busy with them) but it doesn't make his importance to the history of our nation any less significant.

Unfortunately, Hollywood doesn't always act in a logical manner. People in the industry are known to hold a grudge and considering there are quite a bit of people of the Jewish faith employed in Hollywood, (WARNING: I am NOT saying the Jews run Hollywood so please don't comment back to me calling me an anti-Semite ok?) I'm guessing they might have a tough time separating the man from the movie. So much of Hollywood is a popularity contest it's laughable. Don't believe me? Check out the "Academy Award winning performance" of Sandra Bullock from last year's The Blind Side. That she even got a nomination for that overrated film is proof positive of my point.

The long and short of it is I'm not going to remove Braveheart from my top five list just because Mel Gibson is an alcoholic manic depressive. It is possible to separate the man from the movie.

Although I don't think it's possible to separate the laughs from the above picture.