Heard.

35 Responses to “Heard.”

1. sarah.of.a.lesser.god says:

   July 13, 2010 at 9:07 am

   Dontcha know the bitch set him up? She’s a gold-digger — and Russian to boot! And haven’t we all said stuff like that at some point? Besides, it’s a private conversation! OMGLEAVEMELALONE!!!!!!!
2. Britni TheVadgeWig says:

   July 13, 2010 at 9:23 am

   And here I was thinking that over the years of abuse that his wives/girlfriends had/have suffered, it just kept getting worse and worse for them. Silly me.

   Someone on my Twitter timeline said, “I would be so embarrassed if tapes of me fighting with my spouse were released. We all say things in anger. I know I have” UM… WTF KIND OF SHIT DO YOU SAY TO YOUR SPOUSE IN ANGER? Do you threaten to kill them? Because if so, you have a lot bigger problems than being a defender of Mel Gibson.
3. BeckySharper says:

   July 13, 2010 at 9:32 am

   It can not get bad enough for him, as far as I’m concerned.
4. mischiefmanager says:

   July 13, 2010 at 9:35 am

   Pity.

   I used to be a huge fan onf his, back in the early days when he was doing fine films with up and coming Aussie directors. Little did I know he was a flaming lunatic. I’m sticking with Viggo now. He may be a bit eccentric but his politics are right on.
5. RMJ says:

   July 13, 2010 at 9:47 am

   Oh noes! Whatever shall he do with his piles and piles of money and embarrassing amount of privilege?
6. baraqiel says:

   July 13, 2010 at 9:56 am

   @Britni – yeah, that’s what really gets me. “Wellll…people say things they don’t mean when they’re fighting. That stuff was pretty bad but I wouldn’t call him a racist. And I don’t know how you could say he’s a misogynist for just hating this one woman! Anyway, what she did was pretty bad too. Taping the conversation…how disloyal!”

   I swear I have seen all of those sentiments represented in conversations about this. And then people are like, “rape culture? What rape culture?”
7. Kirstin says:

   July 13, 2010 at 10:00 am

   Simple, yet very well said! Thanks
8. rodriguez says:

   July 13, 2010 at 10:03 am

   this is a great idea for a little feature on this blog!
9. charlemagneinsweats says:

   July 13, 2010 at 10:13 am

   The guy clearly has rage issues and needs help. I don’t feel sorry for him at all as he’s already has numerous documented screw ups before.

   But can I no longer enjoy “The Bounty”, “The Year of Living Dangerously” or even “Lethal Weapon” anymore without tacitly endorsing Gibson the man? At what point does an actor’s behavioral issues make it impossible to enjoy their work?
10. rodriguez says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:30 am

    @charle – Yes I love “The Year of Living Dangerously”. And yeah, when exactly does an artist’s actions cross the line? Wherever it is, for me, Mel is across it.
11. emilyanne says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:33 am

    @rodriguez, @charlemagne – he’s crossed it for me – Gallipoli and Year of Living Dangerously were two of my favourite films as a teenager. I couldn’t watch them now. Then again I’ve actually been unable to watch anything with Mel Gibson in it since he made the inflammatory and insane Passion of the Christ, and i say that as a Catholic.
12. rodriguez says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:37 am

    @emilyanne, oh yeah, the Passion of the Christ… I have other, different reasons for hating that one, but it’s a whole other category and type than this stuff. Uggh Mel, two different ways of being a hateful human.
13. rodriguez says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:38 am

    then again, there is a deep connection between this kind of misogyny and the patriarchy of the RCC.
14. BeckySharper says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:40 am

    @charlemagne: Yeah, it’s hard to know where the line is, and I think each person has her own tolerance level.

    I’m with emilyanne, though. For me it was when he made The Passion. He refused to acknowledge concerns about the masturbatory violence and anti-Semitism of the film. When he did press for it, he also refused to condemn his activist father’s hateful, Holocaust-denying lunacy (Dad made the rounds on conservative radio when the movie came out). Mel couldn’t even manage a simple, neutral “I love my father but I disagree with him on that issue.” He’s a hard-core hater, and he showed his colors then.
15. Panty Buns says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:40 am

    Early this morning, July 13th, 2010, Radaronline.com released an “EXCLUSIVE NEW AUDIO: Mel Gibson Admits Hitting Oksana, Threatens To Kill Her“.
    Last night some of the snippets had already been on the evening news.

    The quotes below are from the Radar Online article and tapes linked above:
    Some of the outrageous stuff he was heard said was: ” “You look like a f*cking bitch inheat. And if you get raped by a pack of ni**ers it will be your fault. Alright? Because you provoked it.” ”
    With respect to punching her in the face he says: ” “You know what, you f’cking derseved it.” ”
    He is also heard to say ” “You need a f*cking bat in the side of the head. Alright, how about that?” ”
    and ” “I’ll put you in a f*cking rose garden you c*nt! You understand that? Because I’m capable of it. You understand that?” ”

    On July 9th, 2010 Katie Waldeck wrote a post on the Bitch Blogs titled “Douchebag Decree: Mel Gibson“. In that post Gibson was rightly, in my opinion, referred to as a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic douchebag. He really earned “Ye Olde Douchebag Decree”.
16. rodriguez says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:44 am

    anyway, PhD, what exactly is the quote, and who said it, etc… and why is there this default in the media where it’s always always from the male pov…no matter where the guilt lies and what the woman’s suffering might be?
17. Endora says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:50 am

    Ugh.

    Along similar lines, also heard this weekend:

    ‘Don’t you think you’re being a little judgmental?’

    To me. For rejecting a dude who said Hitler was right about the Jews. Because, this person said, he probably just didn’t know any better, coming from a small village and all. Despite being an adult and born in central Europe (but not Germany or Austria, just FYI).

    My un-Zen reaction was ‘there are certain dealbreakers, and yes, I will fucking judge him for that’.

    Societal pressure for women to be ‘nice’ strikes again. (Can you tell I am still angry about this??)
18. Endora says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:53 am

    @RMJ: Best comment ever.
19. charlemagneinsweats says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:58 am

    Becky–I try to maintain a clear “separation of artist and individual” policy otherwise I’d be denying myself a lot of interesting art. (I love the movie Chinatown, for example.) But at some point the two become inseparable.

    Maybe I’ll grandfather in Mel’s earlier pre-Passion movies.
20. BeckySharper says:

    July 13, 2010 at 10:59 am

    @Endora: Yeah, that whole “ooh, you’re being judgemental” thing is both a put-down (you’re not being nice!) and a cop-out (I’m too lazy/privileged to get outraged about hate/cruelty/intolerance).

    Judgement has its place. It’s how we maintain a humane, ethical society. People who are hateful, cruel, immoral, misogynist, racist, etc. deserve to be judged—and condemned.
21. mischiefmanager says:

    July 13, 2010 at 11:27 am

    Hear, hear, Becky. Living a moral live requires making judgements. Certain behaviors should be discouraged and if the people who exhibit those behaviors can’t learn to act like civilized people, we need to cut them off. As I’ve said here before, I’m a big fan of shunning. I’d happily turn my back on Gibson or Polanski in the street.
22. NefariousNewt says:

    July 13, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    My question is: how did he survive this long in Hollywood? I mean, this is not something that happened overnight, so echoes of this must have been happening earlier in his career, no? Or was he more circumspect back then, before he hit it really big, and now he thinks his wealth and fame and power insulate him somehow?

    I feel worse for Oksana; I hear excerpts of the rant on NPR yesterday, and I can’t imagine how frightened she must be of him.
23. flackette says:

    July 13, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    I’m not sure where my “line” is as far as rejecting an artist or filmmaker’s work due to their actions, but he has definitely crossed it. Pity, too, as in the past I have really enjoyed some of his movies. But I will not be spending a dime to attend/view/Netflix/download anything by him in the future.

    Sometimes being judgmental is okay. I judge people who are cruel to animals. I judge people who are violent against physically weaker people. And I judge people who repeatedly say hateful and terrible things. It’s okay to judge people who are clearly doing bad things, repeatedly and without apparent remorse.
24. PhDork says:

    July 13, 2010 at 12:38 pm

    Newt, he survived because he made people (not least of all himself) rich. But now that this shit is really all out there, he’s radioactive and no longer a cash cow. So people who previously turned a blind eye, made excuses, or thought “it’s none of my business” are finally “free” to say “oh my stars what a horrible person, I had no idea, ::clutch clutch faint faint::”
25. BeckySharper says:

    July 13, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    @PhDork: Word. Also, he was very handsome and charismatic, which will make people turn a blind eye to pretty much any sin.

    I wonder if there’s be so much attention/pearl-clutching in Hollywood if this had come out 15 years ago. It seems like Hollywood’s a lot more willing to condemn and abandon an aging action star who’s losing his looks than a young hot one.

    (I mean, he’s still better-than-average looking, but I think he’s starting to resemble the portrait in his attic, thanks to a steady diet of booze and hate).
26. PhDork says:

    July 13, 2010 at 12:47 pm

    charlemagne, the art v. artist debate is evergreen. I couldn’t care less about Gibson’s oeuvre, but there are plenty of musicians–James Brown is the one who always springs to mind–who I think are bloody brilliant entertainers, but were also pretty reprehensible human beings.

    I can’t un-buy my JB recordings, and I obviously can’t go see him in concert any more, so those ships have sailed, but I do try to vote with my dollar. And I’m generally very wary of idol-worship of any sort.
27. Spark says:

    July 13, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    @Endora: Wow. If you can’t judge someone for being pro-Hitler… wow.
    I think the line is an idiosyncratic one. There are some entertainers I can’t look at the same way, and some that I’m easily able to separate from their work. Probably depends on how important their work is to me. But despite my emotional reaction, I vote with my dollar, like PhDork. I still love Wes Anderson movies, but I didn’t buy a ticket for Fantastic Mr. Fox after he signed the Polanski petition.
28. emilyanne says:

    July 13, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    @BeckySharper – there was quite an interesting piece in the Guardian at the weekend about that.

    Basically about how Gibson’s core was always this scary craziness but that that very craziness magnified as charisma on the big screen made him a star. In other words the piece argued you can’t really say ‘oh i liked him but now pearls clutch, he’s a terrible man’ because on some level that instability was always present it’s just that people chose to not see it when he was a success.

    Yet, at the same time, the writer argued that he wouldn’t have been a success without it and that people knew that but didn’t care while he was hot.
29. JetGirl says:

    July 13, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    Leave Mel alone! Can’t you see he’s hurting? *Cries until mascara runs, posts results on YouTube*
30. BeckySharper says:

    July 13, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    @emilyanne: That is SO Tom Cruise’s story too.
31. JetGirl says:

    July 13, 2010 at 6:26 pm

    Damn, I just listened to Gibson’s rants. Very scary. That poor woman!
32. AtomiClash says:

    July 13, 2010 at 11:10 pm

    I was watching this this morning with AtomicBoy over our coffee. As the words were leaving the anchor’s mouth, he calmly reached over and took my scalding hot cup away from me before they were launched – as if by their own accord! – toward his roommate’s TV…
    The groveling attempts to remind us of The Career That Was are infuriating. Yeah, it sucks when someone you admired or thought of as a “swell guy” turns out to be vile, but things that suck worse: domestic violence and domestic violence apologists and victim-blaming culture.
33. isa says:

    July 14, 2010 at 3:06 am

    “Mel Gibson just keeps making things worse and worse for himself, by being a bigoted rage-o-holic.”

    there, fixed.
34. MonkeyShines says:

    July 18, 2010 at 10:04 pm

    For the record, I also posted this at Zelda Lily.

    He did make racist and misogynistic remarks, but the evidence that he is a physically abuser is rapidly vanishing.

    His wife, well known as a woman of integrity, has testified that he never lifted a hand to her or her kids in their thirty years of marriage, and was a loving father.

    Meanwhile evidence has emerged that the tapes were digitally altered and Oksana’s dentist, who initially supported her claims of violent abuse, now says that she is lying, and the photo she has issued of her supposedly broken teeth is a fake.

    It’s the Duke University Lacrosse team case all over again. Amazing how many people were demanding his head on a platter before all the evidence. There are some who are convinced that a man is by nature a predator and a woman by nature a victim.

    Not that Mel is blameless. However much those tapes may have been edited, the raw material suggests someone with severe mental illness. I remember hearing somewhere that Mel is manic-depressive. It’s a terrible affliction that can bring out the worst in otherwise good people.
35. BeckySharper says:

    July 18, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    @Monkeyshines: You’re contradicting yourself all over the place:

    He did make racist and misogynistic remarks

    but

    It’s the Duke University Lacrosse team…”

    but:

    Not that Mel is blameless

    Can’t have it both ways. He’s either blameless or he’s not. You’re both trying to excuse his vile behavior—because you “read somewhere that Mel is manic-depressive”—and at the same time saying he never actually did those things. That’s not logical.

    Unless you believe the tape is entirely a hoax and it’s not Mel Gibson at all, what’s on it on it MORE than supports PhDork’s assertion that he is “violent, misogynist, racist, hate-filled, and utterly contemptible.” He made those disgusting statements, he told her she “deserved it” when he punched her in the face, and he threatened to kill her.

    And I don’t care if he’s manic depressive or not. Being an addict or mentally ill doesn’t give someone the right to abuse their partner or give them a free pass once they do it.