As you may recall, Mel Gibson was arrested in Malibu in July of 2006 for drunk-driving, and a recording of him spouting anti-Semitic insults during the arrest sent the actor’s career into decline. He appears to think that’s the only thing hanging over him.
On the October 27 episode of Variety podcast Playback, Gibson reflected on the incident, seeming to suggest that time should have softened the public’s perceptions of his behavior. He says:
Ten years have gone by…I’m feeling good. I’m sober, all of that kind of stuff, and for me it’s a dim thing in the past. But others bring it up, which kind of I find annoying, because I don’t understand why after 10 years it’s any kind of issue. Surely if I was really what they say I was, some kind of hater, there’d be evidence of actions somewhere. There never has been. I’ve never discriminated against anyone or done anything that sort of supports that reputation. And for one episode in the back of a police car on eight double tequilas to sort of dictate all the work, life’s work and beliefs and everything else that I have and maintain for my life is really unfair.
Were it one incident in a lifetime of good works, temperance, and tolerance, people should consider if he deserves to be continually harangued about drunkenly harassing someone with racially charged obscenities. But it wasn’t, and he probably does! Since 2006, he’s also gone through a very public and messy separation from Oksana Grigorieva, which included the release of tapes where he is recorded being verbally abusive and racist once again, and actually threatens to kill her.
But, by all means, listen and consider his position yourself:
Though some have urged us to
forget and forgive, others maintain Mel Gibson is a
violent dangerous madman.
Variety interviewer Kristopher Tapley
writes somewhat ambiguously that Gibson’s situation “recalls the oft-considered notion of separating the art from the artist, which is something ‘The Birth of a Nation’ director
Nate Parker is weathering this year as well.”
2016, the year men are forced to “weather” their past.
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