The many shades of Mel Gipson's dark persona
Nov 23, 2006 - 2:30:49 PM
, Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
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With these strands of his dark persona lurking beneath that race out during moments of lapses like the drunk driving, the world is slowly finding out that Gibson has a lot to hide.
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By Sevanand Gaddala, Indo-Asian News Service,
[RxPG] Mumbai, Nov 23 (IANS) In 1995, Mel Gibson won an Academy Award for best director for the epic 'Braveheart'. But everything he has done after that simply reveals that Gibson might have a brave heart but it is also a dirty little heart.
Earlier this year he was arrested for drunk driving; this alone might have been enough to get himself off lightly. He instead resisted arrest, called a female officer 'sugar-tits' and then most damagingly went on an anti-Semitic tirade saying, 'F***ing Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.' He did later profusely apologise but by then it was all too late.
The site Filmthreat.com in its annual dishing out of shame declared Mel Gibson the Coldest Hollywood Celebrity. He deserves it. On examining his career -- as an actor, director, and in interviews -- it is clear that Mel Gibson has a lot to be ashamed of. On the surface he presents a religiosity that seemed like fresh air in the morally ambiguous climate of Hollywood. He has a long-term marriage, many children, is an ardent Catholic and is the director of the most successful 'religious' film of all time 'Passion of the Christ'.
Of the things about him that are easy to slam are his tirades against homosexuals, his ultra violent sadistic movies and his belief that his wife is going to hell because she believes in the wrong doctrine -- albeit Christian. And now in the more recent past we can add that he hates Jews.
But he has managed to cultivate the pious image by making statements like, 'The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film' on the filming of 'Passion of the Christ'. Before the release of 'Braveheart' he intoned, 'I just know I am going to get crucified.'
On closer examination of his films both as an actor and director it is clear to see that he has a Messiah complex and thinks of himself as a Christ figure. His movies are ultra violent and sadistic and it is this streak of his persona that he seems most desperate to hide.
In 'Braveheart', he gets impaled, throat sliced, speared, arrows embedded in his body, and laid out in the crucifixion pose. He even gets pelted by the assembled mob and when he is just barely conscious he is laid out on the cross to be disembowelled and decapitated. Through all this he suffers silently only to in the end cry out, 'Freedom!!'
In 'Conspiracy Theory', co-starring Julia Roberts, Gibson's character is kidnapped, injected with truth-serum and shot dead. But he comes back alive miraculously. Playing Porter in 'Payback' Gibson is left writhing in pain and was spewing blood on the garage floor. He is later hit by a car, repeatedly beaten, and gets his toes mashed with a hammer.
In the 'Passion of the Christ' James Caviezel playing Jesus gets endlessly tortured, scourged, flung around and in that iconic pose is seen head down with the cross on the back drenched in blood and howling in pain.
Gibson has not been able to avoid this sort of controversy off screen either. His father states that there was a population explosion among European Jews between 1933-1945 and that the Holocaust is a myth. Gibson has never rebuffed his father's claims and in an interview simply said, 'My father has never told me a lie.'
With these strands of his dark persona lurking beneath that race out during moments of lapses like the drunk driving, the world is slowly finding out that Gibson has a lot to hide.
For a long time in Hollywood Gibson was celebrated. He had box-office clout, an Academy Award, was courted by the religious and political establishment and in 1985 was also voted the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. But now all he has to show is his dirty little heart. It is all over for him.
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