The part about meeting with leaders in the Jewish community may have been laying it on a bit thick.

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Aug 012006
 

There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of Anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.

I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. It’s about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.

Say what you will about the man; that is a good apology. Of course a cynic would argue that it’s really just an impressive bit of damage control, but I would never say anything like that.

[MollyGood]

 Posted by JHW at 3:17 pm

Never trust a man named “Mel.”

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Aug 012006
 

Old posts:

There are two lessons I draw from these posts:

  1. I can see the future.

    I accurately described Tom Cruise’s farcical marriage (including the sham baby!) and anticipated Mel Gibson’s going around the bend.*

  2. Who cares?

    These aren’t world leaders or great philosophers; they’re purveyors of generally mindless entertainment. As much as I enjoy making the case that they are somehow coercing their fans into sharing their awful beliefs, I don’t think I can seriously argue it. Do you think anybody has become a scientologist because of Tom Cruise’s meltdown? Is there anybody walking around today saying, “you know, Mel’s right–Jews ARE responsible for the world’s suffering!”?

    There will always be people who think these things, and at least a few of those people will be famous. But does it really make any difference in my life if Tom Cruise is a raving lunatic, or if Mel Gibson drinks too much and reveals his (completely unsurprising) bigotry? I don’t think it does. And does it somehow change the value of their work? I don’t think so, at least in the sense that I think an artistic work (yes, I am including The Patriot and Cocktail in the category) should be judged on its own merits, and not by the context of its creation.

All that being said, though, I find it doubtful that I will ever watch a Tom Cruise/Mel Gibson movie without being distracted by thoughts of their respective derangements. I know that as soon as The Passion of the Christ came out, Gibson’s filmography took on a different shape. Suddenly I noticed that almost every role he played required him to get beaten, abused, or tortured–and often sacrifice himself for a greater good. And of course Tom Cruise’s manic grin and desperate affability look different in the cold light of morning, as well.

I like to read and write about the personal lives of famous people, and I do think there’s an element of relevance in some of these stories. Fame carries with it influence, and a celebrity’s views on significant matters like race, religion, sexual orientation, global poverty, etc. can actually make a real difference in the world. For example, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to argue that The Passion of the Christ acted as a real, if minor, energizing force in the evangelical Christian movement. But there’s a huge difference between the effect of releasing that movie and the effect of making some boorish and offensive remarks after getting pulled over for drunk driving. I don’t like Mel for saying the things he said, but I think it’s somewhat hilarious that there are people out there condemning him for them after giving him a pass when he released his polemic two years ago.

In summary: Mel Gibson is a hateful jerk**, which we pretty much already knew. Tom Cruise has constructed an elaborate but clumsy public life to mask what is surely a pathetic and weird private life. Making sweeping judgments about either man because of how he chooses to live his life is both unfair and inevitable.

* Yeah, I know. Not exactly the most difficult prognostication ever performed.

** Isn’t it interesting how Mel’s getting excoriated for his entirely predictable anti-semitic rant while getting a free pass on calling a female officer “sugar-tits” and attempting to threaten his way out of the arrest by claiming to own Malibu? Do you still want to see this guy as the lead in What Women Want?

 Posted by JHW at 10:41 am
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