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

[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.