Mad Max: Beyond Bigotdome

So Mel Gibson was doing 89 MPH in a 45 MPH zone with a half-empty bottle of tequila in the back seat and then gets pulled over by cops who test his BAC at .12%, which is 50% higher than "legally drunk"* That right there is enough story for me to get a good chuckle. I love it when the rich and powerful take umbrage when treated as if they are just another citizen. (And I hate it when the rich and powerful get the same traffic fine as we do. What kind of deterrent is a $100 speeding ticket to a multi-millionaire? In RussWorld, traffic fines would be indexed to your income. But I digress...)

Then he goes on a profanity-laced tirade, saying all sorts of anti-Semitic remarks along with the standard celebrity "do you know who I am / I own Malibu!" self-important attempts to evade responsibility. Hmm, an actor slandering Jews... in Hollywood. That's the greatest PR disaster since Bush wanted to call the war "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (spell the acronym) and described it as a "crusade".

It's even more fun to read Gibson's apologies. Take 1:

"I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable."

Yeah, you know, that happens to me a lot when I get drunk, too. You can't shut me up from saying despicable things I do not believe. Like last New Year's Eve, when I got loaded on Jager and blurted out "F*ckin' n*gger butt-pirates, they're the cause of all the depravity in the world. Are you a fag?" to the black officer arresting me.

Of course, I never said such a thing (I don't drink, either), but it would be easy enough to prove that I don't really believe that statement. I write for a black lesbian's blog and have many black and many gay friends who could vouch for my unbigoted nature (don't know if they would after a statement like that, though). It would be tougher for me to deny if, say, my father has famously denied that slavery or Jim Crow ever happened, or if, perhaps, I directed a three-hour snuff film showing black homosexuals torturing and killing Jesus.

It doesn't pass the smell test. Usually when we drink, our inhibitions are lowered so that we'll say or do things we're too uptight or socially-controlled to say when sober. You may think Madeline the company receptionist has an awesome rack, but you wouldn't say it in public, especially to any co-worker. But get a few drinks in you at the Christmas party and you may blurt out what you have felt so deeply for so long. It's not likely you would blurt out something you don't believe, but rather, something you do believe but are not allowed to say.

Then today we get Gibson's apology, take 2:

"The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith."

Yeah, and avarice, pride, gluttony, and drunkenness are against your faith, too, but it doesn't look like faith has had any ameliorating effect on those conditions, either.

Now Mel's playing the forgiveness / redemption / addict card for all they are worth. He's got a problem with alcoholism, he tells us. He's reaching out to the Jewish community for guidance in "understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display" (it's called "the id") and assistance in his recovery. Of course, this latest move has nothing to do with rescuing his career in the land of Weinsteins, Katzenbergs, Spielbergs, and Eisners.

Forgive me if I don't buy it. It's not like he's a first-time offender. Pam's already blogged about Mel's homobigoted comments from the 90s. Mel was also forced to remove the subtitle about Christ's blood being "on us and our children" from his The Passion of The Christ movie. And lost in all the anti-Semitism is a sexist remark where he referred to one of the female arresting officers as "sugar tits".

Another thing we shouldn't lose sight of is the actual offense of driving nearly twice the speed limit while 150% drunk. I've heard some commentators crying that the statements are getting more play than the offense and it's not fair because if it were any other person, those statements wouldn't have become public. Yeah, that's true, but I think it's a decent trade-off for the fact that any other person wouldn't be able to raise $5,000 bail at the snap of a finger and might actually have to spend some real time in county lock-up. Or the fact that any other person might lose their license from a DUI and not be able to just have their limo driver take them to work the next week.

All in all, this couldn't have happened to a better guy. I can't wait to see what the South Park guys do with this.

* Legally drunk? As Carlin would say, "if it's legal, then what's the f*ckin' problem?