On a Less Serious Note

So Mel, how's that head feeling? Gibson gets drunk and spews forth anti-Semitic bile. Dan Drezner summarizes this non-event. Missing is the sexist comments: he allegedly said to a female sergeant, "what are you looking at sugar tits?" Members of the Jewish community suggest we re-examine the Passion of the Christ in light of these new circumstances.

Uh, no.

As a Catholic, I think at his core, Mel is an anti-Semite. He may cover up well during sober, daylight hours, but deep down he is his father's son. Whatever you feel about his movies, as Hitchens says, "One does not abruptly decide, between the first and second vodka, or the ticks of the indicator of velocity, that the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are valid after all." (NOTE: this remark is funny, but Hitchens is BRUTAL to Gibson and lets his animus overwhelm his prose. Proceed at your own risk.)

That said, the POTC was very moving to me. True to the New Testament, the Jews were the bad guys, no doubt, but that was not my focus (nor was that the focus of any Catholic I have talked to). Never once did I look at the movie and say to myself, "those damn Jews." Gibson's rant does not change the power of watching the Passion for me.

In fact, the religion of the mob and Sanhedrin were of little import. As a post-Vatican II, suburban American Catholic, I was not brought up to focus on the culpability of the Jews in Christ's death. Mel Gibson was raised differently.

I understand the sensitivity of the Jews to this sort of portrayal. I can get pretty prickly when I sense anti-Catholicism, so I think I can appreciate when others perceive anti-religion prejudice. And I acknowledge that I am in no position to judge the movie in that way, but I am in a position to judge Gibson's remarks: Reprehensible.