The Passion of the Mel

Oksana says Mel Gibson is "trivializing" domestic violence by charging her with extortion over the audio clips of phone conversations that were sold to the internet by her sister. She says she recoded the messages because she thought she wouldn't make it through the night. Of course she is saying this to RadarOnline, the webside that bought and posted the rants and which along with TMZ will hopefully have a special place in internet Hell when they are finally toppled.

If she honestly felt she wouldn't last the night she would have called the cops, especially after the rose garden threat. But she remains calm and is quite cold for these clips, and I have heard all 6 she is in and the 7th which is actually just a voice-mail from Mel. If the tapes were intended for cops Oksana would have handed them over right away. Instead she let her sister access them and field bids from newspapers and websites, settling on RadarOnline.

There is no doubt that Mel was angry. As a less creative person I might say "I should KILL you!" to someone, but Mel being used to speeches instead said something one of his characters would have said. Frankly, I give it no more weight than the average person saying I should kill you. The spectre of OJ Simpson of course is there, because nobody exepcted him to snap. But again, whatever he said to get her to start recording should have also spurred her to call the police and then let him rant.

The fact that her stated fear for her life was not great enough to call the police and that there is ZERO fear in her smug voice in these clips shows the tapes were for extortion and/or inevitable humiliation. Because even if Mel paid or agreed to a rotten custory revision Oksana's sister would have still been able to release the audio. Charging someone with extortion does not "trivialize" domestic violence, but even her claim if it is very suspect considering the underhanded way she operates.

News sources, such as they are, say that Mel Gibson's Viking epic was due to start filming in the Fall and also say that there is no script yet and it is just an idea. The one thing they easily make up their collective mind about is that Mel Gibson is the anti-Christ because he yelled at his ex-girlfriend. He also (forgetting context for a minute) used the n-word, which apparently nullifies any and all handshakes and friendshakes with black people and marks him as much as a racist as telling the story of Christ marks him (and I suppose any and all of us raised Catholic or Christian) as anti-Semites. It depends who you ask. Unfortunately journalists don't seem to have the enthusiasm they once did for verification of facts. Or maybe I'm romanticising the past and it was always about sensation and immediate gut reaction and fact-free knee-jerk judgements.

Some say he is staying in America to shoot The Beaver and How I Spent My Summer Vacation, therefore he has no plans to skip the country for Australia. But his acting in those two projects is completed already. Privately, I'd like to see him take over Mad Max: Fury Road if George Miller will have him back in the role. I understand that even though Gibson is not supposed to be in it (after dropping out of the planned 2004 shoot) Icon Productions is involved. The real kick in the pants hasn't happened yet. Bruce Davey his longtime producer and former accountant at Icon hasn't jumped ship yet. But I can see that even on the level of reporage limited to production plans the entertainment news media doesn't seem to bother cross-checking its facts.

Firstly, according to People, Mel Gibson has finished shooting on How I Spent My Summer Vacation before the infamous leakage of phone rants. People magazine remarked on how Mel got along with everyone on the set, and also there had been several news items about the controversy of displacing prisoners to shoot that prison film in Mexico. I don't know what kinds of clashes he had with Hispanics, but reportedly there were demonstrations against the film so his "wetbacks" comments don't come quite from out of the blue. Also, The Beaver was only $5 according to Mel the last time he was on Jimmy Kimmel. Certain influential people in the media, and Ari Emanuel the head of his former agency have applied negative pressure against him for years. In this case, I can't blame Leo for bailing from the Viking movie because there is so much hate and nary a word about Manic Depressive Disorder which is as much a disease as alcoholism. This does not mean his peers actually hate Mel. In an industry where people live in public and watch their every joke, trying to avoid nuance and irony (like Oliver Stone's overly candid jokes while trying to defend Mel), when people are having a PRIVATE conversation the floodgates open almost like a secret handshake. And that doesn't mean they are all racist. It just means that when you are dissing someone or someone's maid or painting a picture of what the local thugs might call each other and what their attitude is (losers with chips on their shoulder and a slavery complex ie: the n-word) you just spew. Especially if you are venting to someone you once loved who has now administered a damaging blow to your reputation (by reporting the scuffle over the baby from January).

Violence especially against women is of course despised as is racism, but then there are people gleefully and mindlessly throwing around words like "anti-Semetism" which have an ever-broadening definition. I can love Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Richard Donner, and be moved by the Shylock speech scenes Mel Gibson performs in The Man Without a Face, love Mel Brooks as much and still be called an anti-Semite if I think David Geffin and Ari Emanuel were tacky in holding a grudge over The Passion of the Christ. That movie by the way is not anti-Semetic. Mel's own hands hammer in the nails. Humanity and each individual of a Catholic or Christian congregation crucifies Jesus and is forgiven as good and evil fight it out in each person's heart. It is not about Jews, no matter what the idiot Ciaphas says. JC said (of his own Crucifixion and every unjust crucifixion and flogging and stoning that happened on a regular basis and was attended by locals) "Forgive them, they know not what they do."

Even if Mel Gibson doesn't bounce back from this right away, I think a lot of people will be ashamed. Sure Manic Depressive disorder is not cool and yelling and screaming and swearing and threatening may not be cool, but they are as much a part of the "trunk" and go-to language Mel is used to in almost ALL of his characters. Just as persecution (accusations of anti-Semetism) he endured in 2006 when reports anticipated Disney dumping Apocalypto caused him to fall off the wagon and drive drunk naturally lead to jewish slander being part of his ramblings. Next step will be that perhaps Mel will meet someone who transcribes or tape records whatever he says as he talks in his sleep. Then THOSE ramblings will also be taken as "the truth" and the "mask removed."

Thank God Darlene Love and Whoopie Goldberg have spoken up and Robert DeNiro has wished him luck getting through this ordeal. Burt Reynolds movies are still entertaining years after he hit Loni Anderson, even though he was wrong. It may not be particular to Mel Gibson but there may be quirks and flashpoints here that a lot of Hollywood people secretly recognize.

I also think a LOT of people including myself would like to see TMZ and RadarOnline and the like utterly destroyed. If Mel Gibson kills himself over this humiliation I hope RadarOnline staff get prison for manslaughter.

Kickstarter

They still need more money for the Burning Man intergenerational flick:

I've been introduced to this new site to help filmmakers get some seed money for their projects.

http://kck.st/90rJJY

Kickstarter is the name. The link is for a friend's flick I've just put a thousand dollars into. Big step for me, because I don't help anyone.

Oddly, one of their producers is someone who did The Corporation and a Noam Chomsky film.