Say.

[sab]

Say.

I don't want to light a match under anything, or anything, and I only know what I know from glossing over the Internet and I'm so totally a year late and a few tacos short --

But what do we make of Hutton Gibson's -- Mel Gibson's dad's -- comments about the Holocaust in the week that his son's "groundbreaking" "anti-Semitic" (I have zero evidence for either of those things and am merely quoting what I've read) Jesus film hits the box office?

Hutton Gibson says he didn't know his comments were on the record, which is probably true enough, if not, you know, precisely relevant to the issue here.

Whether Mel has denounced these views or not seems to be open to interpretation, and I don't want to put words in his or anyone's mouth. He seems to say he stands by his father, which is dandy, and also seems to acknowledge that the Holocaust, um, happened, which is also, you know, dandy, but doesn't seem to be saying anything particularly enlightening about the sentiment behind his father's statements, nor trying to distance himself from them.

The radio transcript's here if you're in the mood to download a .pdf, also there's audio clips. Personally, I don't need audio clips and the synopsis was really enough for me, but in the interest of sharing. I am moderately creeped out. Not in a wanting-to-start-a-Crusade way, just in a personally-creeped-out way.

Anyway, this is what I know, because the Internet told me. And because one should never address anything without first consulting the Great Oracle of Truth, www.snopes.com, here's Snopes' take on the situation, which has been brewing in public consciousness since last year.

Comments

[hesychasm]

I think you can make a lot of it or a little of it. You have valid reasons for being creeped out. I think Gibson has valid reasons for not publically saying his father is a crackpot. (see brief exchange with Kita on the matter here)

I actually wanted to ask a tangential thing -- were you at Swat the semester Holocaust revisionist stuff was put in people's mailboxes? I believe it was slightly before my time, though I knew the guy who did it.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

I was. I got more hot and bothered about it then than I am now, largely because it was on my turf, but also because I was less good at picking my battles.

Holocaust denial is a really really hot-button subject, but, at the same time, for me, sort of an easy one, at least in this generation where common wisdom is wise enough and survivors are still around to tell the tale. Two generations from now, when people start doubting the children of survivors and history gets blurrier it'll be a bigger issue, I think. But now I have a (perhaps ill-advised) kind of faith that the historians and the scholars will keep writing, and that enough people are intelligent enough that the truth will remain the truth.

It was a sticky couple days at Swarthmore, but, as so many things there do, it just descended into left-thinking Liberals trying to out-Liberal each other, and then it blew over. So that's where my blind optimism comes from, at least where that's concerned.

[hesychasm]

You're making me want to do a post on this, because there are a lot of memories for me re: this incident I wasn't even around for, tied up with the guy and the politics and my family's deal with genocide and just the whole first year at college, especially that college, thing. Hrm. Gotta think on this some. Except I'm leaving work, so I'll think it over on the train.

[furies.livejournal.com]

well, if people like me have any say in the matter, the record will speak for itself. i don't think revisionist historians will be able to take this away. the nazis were too proud of themselves. they wrote every little detail down. that's hard to contradict, though i know there are people that do. but unlike the comfort women in korea, where the japanese soldiers kept no records of the women they coerced into being sex slaves (and later americans expected the same sort of situation) it's a more he said she said situation, and when the generation dies, you're going to be losing a huge part of the argument. written oral history, as any historian can tell you, needs to be taken into context, and one can read any sort of context into pretty much anything.

but the holocaust is safe, i think. ironically enough, i think it's going to be the germans and what they did after the war that make sure the world doesn't forget.

Hrm.

[noelleleithe.livejournal.com]

Are you creeped out by Mel, his father, or both?

I mean, it's clear his father's views are creepy, although I think we can agree he's entitled to his opinions, crazy though they may be. He doesn't seem to be going out and beating up Jews for being Jewish or anything. And Mel has a history of acting pretty wacko about a variety of things.

But what I've been seeing the past few weeks is mostly the media (and some individual and groups) trying to paint Mel (and TPotC) as anti-Semitic without much evidence to back up either claim, using his father as the basis. (And I have to say I'm furious about that radio station calling Mel's father without revealing that they were a radio station or that they were recording the conversation. That was so far over the line they couldn't see it any more, not to mention illegal.)

Mel is quoted in numerous articles as saying yes, the Holocaust happened, so whether or not he's said specifically that his father is wrong about that is irrelevant, IMO. Again, father entitled to opinion, freedom of speech even it's wacko, etc. (Plus Mel's traditionalist Catholic beliefs would preclude publicly dishonoring his father.)

What I think is that Mel's dad is a certified wacko; Mel is super-traditional-Catholic but no more wacko about it than he's been shown to be in other ways; and TPotC is a dramatized version of the last 12 hours of Christ's life that reflects Mel's religious beliefs but that no one alive can prove definitively is right or wrong.

Whoops. Ranted. Sorry 'bout that.

Re: Hrm.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

I'm, in my Jewish Liberal bubble, creeped out by the fact that anti-Semitism exists at all. I've lived a reasonably sheltered life in cities like New York and LA where that's concerned and I forget that the world isn't as tolerant as my immediate circle is.

I'm equally creeped out by extremist intolerance for Muslims, and the fact that George Bush is "pro-Israel" -- in a manner that immediately corresponds with being "anti-Arab" -- makes it difficult to be a self-hating (rather, self-doubting?) Jew in this kind of political climate.

So, you know, with all that going on, I'm creeped out in a general creeped out sense.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

But what do we make of Hutton Gibson's -- Mel Gibson's dad's -- comments about the Holocaust in the week that his son's "groundbreaking" "anti-Semitic" (I have zero evidence for either of those things and am merely quoting what I've read) Jesus film hits the box office?

Eh, his dad's a fascist and it may have rubbed off on his son, who tries to be more sane but may have leftover Issues?

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, that it's a combination of Catholic guilt and father issues where Mel's concerned. And that his dad's a bona-fide looney-tune who would have gone on being quietly a looney-tune had he not accidentally ended up on the radio.

I still get nervous, though, because it only takes one person to say "maybe he's right," especially with a movie as inflammatory as this (which, incidentally, I believe hesychasm in the fact that the movie itself isn't anti-Jewish, but it doesn't matter if it isn't if people think it is and can read it as such) and then another person to throw a rock and, you know, we're all locking our doors.

color me jaded, but...

[(Anonymous)]

Is there anyone who doubts for a moment that this whole host of "controversy" has earned Mel a lot more media attention and thus box office bucks than if he'd played it "safe" and left out the contoversial, anti-semetic (or anti-Jewish, I guess, since everyone but the Romans were semites, right?) stuff from the Gospel of Matthew?
From what I've read, the "blood curse" on the Jews is ONLY in Matthew, and that version of the Gospel was, surprise surprise, written at *exactly* the time that Christianity turned its focus from converting Jews to converting Romans. Fair and balanced, anyone?

Naturally, Mel *is* donating all the profits from his S&M Jesus epic to feed starving children, right? Right? ...yeah, I thought not. Here's hoping that bit about Rich Man:Kingdom of God::Camel:Eye of Needle turns out to be true.

SR

Re: color me jaded, but...

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping that bit about Rich Man:Kingdom of God::Camel:Eye of Needle turns out to be true.

I think David Geffen said the same thing, but I lost the link for the article.

Also, call me. I just left you a message.