Mel Gibson is being investigated for domestic violence after admitting on tape to hitting his girlfriend in the face. According to Reuters’ sources, all of that would have been fine had he not also been a nasty racist.
Although some Hollywood insiders were sanguine about Gibson’s chances for surviving in Hollywood — even without having to use his money to go his own way — he was dropped by his agency, William Morris Endeavor, last week.
[O]bservers — including a studio chief and an insider at William Morris — said the industry might even have gotten past Gibson’s alleged assault on his former girlfriend. (Consider Charlie Sheen.)
But the repeated allegations of bigoted comments have left his relationship with the public in tatters, and that’s a deal-breaker. With tapes surfacing in which Gibson apparently used unforgivable language when referring to African-Americans and Latinos, he has antagonized two groups that are disproportionately represented in movie audiences.
Ah yes, consider Charlie Sheen, the habitual abuser of women who is still the highest paid actor on television. Gibson had long since lost us with his anti-Semitic tirade, and any one of the known infractions — calling an employee a wetback, telling his girlfriend she would be raped by a pack of you know whats — would have, on its own, put him on the Do Not Support List.
So it’s not that we think that any one of these heinous acts should be pitted against the other in a contest. It’s more the implicit belief among the nameless Hollywood executives that women are not a part of this “relationship with the public,” nor among these disproportionately-moviegoing African Americans and Latinos. Nor is anyone at all expected to be perturbed when one this non-dealbreaking group is abused by a well-paid, celebrated man. At least not in any way that counts — that is, the bottom line.
Mel Gibson Ouster More About Money Than Morals [Reuters]
Earlier: Mel Gibson Tape Shows He Is Also A Racist, Abusive Asshole
Mel Gibson Will Work Again, Say Hollywood Insiders