Mel Gibson

I have mixed feelings about Gibson's outrageous behaviour. The first reaction I had to the news was disgust that he should have been driving a car with so much alcohol in his system. That way manslaughter lies, and surely anyone who drinks himself into this state, gets out and drives, and kills somebody deserves to spend a very long time behind bars. Sadly, Americans don’t seem to get as worked up about drinking and driving as we do in Ireland and Britain, more’s the pity. As to what he said to the policeman, if he said all that’s reported, it’s very offensive. Of course. But would the media reaction have been quite so outspoken if he’d cursed Arabs, blaming them for the world’s troubles? Because of the Holocaust there is greater sensitivity to anti-Semitism, which is easy to understand, but surely all racism is objectionable.

What Gibson said is awful, but was it the ‘drink talking’? An ugly darkside is drawn out by alcohol that is not necessarily a viable reflection of the person whom we encounter in society. Lurking behind many happy, smiling faces are fears, irrational hatreds, and so on. History tells us that for some unaccountable reason a lot of this gets dumped onto groups of people that white, non-Jewish people like Gibson irrationally mistrust or fear. Presumably his outburst was also fuelled by anger at Israel’s brutality in the Middle East, but confusing anger at the behaviour of a superpower, a political state, with the actions of Jews as an ethnic or religious group is, to my mind, profoundly wrong.

I don’t want this episode to derail Gibson’s career, because I think he’s got a lot to offer. He’s a fine actor and a good director. As to it forcing a re-evaluation of his film The Passion of Christ, I really think this is nonsensical. The film has to be assessed in its own right, without reference to any episode in a man’s life. Gibson is right to go for treatment, however, and his decision to talk to members of the Jewish community seems excellent, assuming it's sincere.