Running through the jungle
By Capt. Fogg
Mel Gibson sees himself as a victim and thinks he's been unfairly treated after his boozy transgression against public safety, his coy flirtations with Holocaust denial, his demented tirade against the Jews, and his resisting arrest. In a telephone interview, Gibson said:
He's definitely a piece of work of some kind, that's true, but since many people have gone to prison for what he got away with, the notion that, as he said to USA Today, he should get a target tattooed on his chest is just another smug and arrogant bit of the persecution-obsessed Mel Gibson.
**********
"They're calling it blood porn. To make it personal against me, that's a low blow."
And it's just as low to take specific criticism of his movies as evidence that he's a victim and unfairly so. But is Apocalypto "the right thing"? As with his depiction of early-first-centuryJerusalem
While the non-Mayan actors may be mouthing a modern Mayan dialect by rote, as Romans in The Passion of the Christ mouthed medieval Church Latin instead of Greek, they are not Mayans but rather native Americans from the American Midwest, and the more important the role, the more the casting reflects Gibson's biases. Gibson's Jesus, for instance, could have easily passed for a Northern European, while the nasty unbelieving Jews were as stereotypically Semitic as one would see in a medieval passion painting. In Apocalypto, says Danien, "we see fewer than a half-dozen people who are recognizably Maya in appearance."
Of course, that's a bit typical of old Hollywood casting and location selection (the film was shot in Vera Cruz, not in the Yucatan), but Gibson can only sneer and tell us that historical accuracy is more appropriate for the History Channel. What he sells is populist pandering full of blood, torture, and victimhood, and it's tempting to speculate that this fits with the personality and the dark fantasies of a man who thinks the Jews who control the world and start all the wars are out to persecute him.
If you want two gory hours of torture and human sacrifice, go see Apocalypto, says Danien: "If you'd like to learn something about the real lives of the Maya and other peoples of Mesoamerica before the Europeans arrived on these shores, visit the Mesoamerican galleries at the Penn Museum."
And you won’t be enriching an alcoholic bigot by doing it either.
(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)
Mel Gibson sees himself as a victim and thinks he's been unfairly treated after his boozy transgression against public safety, his coy flirtations with Holocaust denial, his demented tirade against the Jews, and his resisting arrest. In a telephone interview, Gibson said:
But how many people do you know get a DUI and are kicked around for six months? It's out of proportion. I'm not saying I wasn't at fault. Hey we're not perfect, we're all human, get over it. I've apologized, done the right thing, now get the hell over it. I'm a work in progress.
He's definitely a piece of work of some kind, that's true, but since many people have gone to prison for what he got away with, the notion that, as he said to USA Today, he should get a target tattooed on his chest is just another smug and arrogant bit of the persecution-obsessed Mel Gibson.
**********
"They're calling it blood porn. To make it personal against me, that's a low blow."
And it's just as low to take specific criticism of his movies as evidence that he's a victim and unfairly so. But is Apocalypto "the right thing"? As with his depiction of early-first-century
Gibson has taken bits and pieces from various groups and time periods and mixed them together with a large dollop of his own feverish imaginings into a Chinese menu of "one from column A and one from column B," with no attempt at accuracy.
While the non-Mayan actors may be mouthing a modern Mayan dialect by rote, as Romans in The Passion of the Christ mouthed medieval Church Latin instead of Greek, they are not Mayans but rather native Americans from the American Midwest, and the more important the role, the more the casting reflects Gibson's biases. Gibson's Jesus, for instance, could have easily passed for a Northern European, while the nasty unbelieving Jews were as stereotypically Semitic as one would see in a medieval passion painting. In Apocalypto, says Danien, "we see fewer than a half-dozen people who are recognizably Maya in appearance."
Of course, that's a bit typical of old Hollywood casting and location selection (the film was shot in Vera Cruz, not in the Yucatan), but Gibson can only sneer and tell us that historical accuracy is more appropriate for the History Channel. What he sells is populist pandering full of blood, torture, and victimhood, and it's tempting to speculate that this fits with the personality and the dark fantasies of a man who thinks the Jews who control the world and start all the wars are out to persecute him.
If you want two gory hours of torture and human sacrifice, go see Apocalypto, says Danien: "If you'd like to learn something about the real lives of the Maya and other peoples of Mesoamerica before the Europeans arrived on these shores, visit the Mesoamerican galleries at the Penn Museum."
And you won’t be enriching an alcoholic bigot by doing it either.
(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)
posted by Capt. Fogg at
9:40 AM
1 Comments:
Its strange how Mel has become the symbol of "family values" to the right, yet, his films are laced with so much death, blood and carnage. Yeah, stuff for the whole family, indeed..
By
Anonymous, at 3:04 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home