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Tuesday, August 01, 2006
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 MEL GIBSON IS REALLY, REALLY SORRY. IS ALSO SUICIDAL AND WANTS TO GO "ONE-ON- ONE" WITH THE JEWS
You know, it's a really good thing that nothing crazy is happening in the world, like, I dunno, the End of the World beginning in the Middle East. If something bad were happening, we wouldn't be able to devote the attention to the strange saga of Mel Gibson that it so richly deserves. And that would be a modern tragedy, because this is a great story.
I'm sure that everyone knows the story thus far. Mel, a noted drunk, had a few pops on Thursday night and went for a drive on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department took exception to this and placed him under arrest. As one can reasonably expect, Mr. Gibson took the opportunity to explain to the deputies how the Jews are responsible for all the world's wars. My more cosmopolitian readers will tell you that there is no better place to deliver a lecture on failth and foreign policy than the back of a police cruiser. All things being equal, it was a pretty typical Friday morning.
From the second I learned of this, I was pretty sure that it jad the potential of becoming the Greatest Story Ever Told. Thus far, it hasn't disappointed. Far from it. It keeps getting better and better.
Most of my world-wide audience probably aren't the scholars of public relations theory and practice that I am. As this blog should make clear, I've devoted my life to making friends. There's really only one thing you need to know about PR: that you can do virtually anything as a public figure and get away with it. There are basically two ways of doing this.
The first is to throw everything out there as quickly and completely as possible. Not only do you accept responsibility for your actions, you publicly villify yourself before anyone else can. The fundamental mistake that Team Gibson made was not putting out all of the information, no matter how embarrassing, themselves on Friday afternoon. If you put a story out, you control it. Former New Jersey governor James McGreevy did this masterfully. Instead of the story being about exchanging state employment for sexual favours, it became about his struggle as a "gay American."
The second way to deal with a scandal is to make it somebody else's fault. You'll remember that Bill Clinton avoided impeachment this way. Instead of the narrative being about perjury and an inappropriate sexual relationship, it was about a "vast right wing conspiracy" and the spending of $40 million in taxpayer money to write a "pornographic" report. By the time the White House was done, you could have been forgiven for thinking that Kenneth Starr was holding back Monica's hair and talking dirty to her as she serviced the President. And then hypmotized him into repeatedly committing perjury.
The first option is preferable to the second for most people. The second option involves a subtlety and skill level that is well beyond someone like Gibson. Besides, it would at some point mean saying that evil forces are aligning against him. And in a case involving anti-Semitic comments, that probably wouldn't be a wise thing to imply.
Instead, here's what Team Gibson did. They had no comment when news of the arrest was released. Then, as it inevitably would, the Jew-hating rant came to light, and Mel's people forever lost the chance to control the story.
Late Saturday afternoon, Gibson's publicist released a written statement that apologized without saying what he was apologizing for or to whom. Remember, two-thirds of the statement was about drunk-driving and his battle with alcoholism. His mention of "despicable" statements and "belligerent behavior" was almost incidental. But by then, the DUI itself wasn't really the story, Mel's anti-Semitism was. That begs a pretty serious question; is an apology really an apology if you don't say who you're apologizing to or why?
All the first statement did is compound the problem and further antagonize the Jewish community.
There has been a two-year long debate about Mel Gibson's feelings toward Jews. He's been known to have an off and on drinking problem since the Eighties. Gibson is also thought to be something of a hothead. Could it be that no one around him thought that this - or something like it - could never happen? During the debate over The Passion of the Christ, Mel had the conservative wing of the media going to bat for him, so all he had to do was sit down for a highly evasive session with Diane Sawyer.
The entire world has been talking about Gibson's rant about the Jews, and all Gibson wanted to talk about was alcoholism. And the two are apples and oranges, trust me on that. Look, I have a very difficult time just starting the day without a .12 blood alcohol level, but I've never once levelled an anti-Semitic tirade at police officers. I save those for the fire department.
For the last four days, Mel's and his people have failed to realize that no one gives a fuck about his drunk-driving. Hell, that fuck-up isn't even enough to get him an audition with Motley Crue. Robert Downey Jr. has been found at various times with crack, heroin, handguns and fucking Wonder Woman outfits. Futhermore, it happened so often that he got to spend some time in state prison for it. In the grand scheme of things, Mel Gibson is the Stevie Wonder of fuck-ups and Downey is Rick James, bitch. And you wanna hear a secret? Robert Downey Jr. is still getting work in Hollywood.
Jesus, no one's even mentioning Mel's calling people "sugar tits." All that proves is that he's a ladies man of some renown.
This is about a bigotry that people have suspected for a long time and had confirmed for them in a particularly unappetizing fashion. Alcohol doesn't make Mel Gibson hate Jews, it just revealed to us what he already was, an anti-Semite. And no amount of rehab "buff and shine" is going to fix that.
Even today, "sources close to Gibson" are leaking "poor, drunk Mel" stories to the press. His publicist is saying that Gibson is "fighting to stay alive," which is more than a little melodramatic. A blood alcohol level of .12 is a little much to drive, but it won't destroy your health or put you into a psychotic state. Two drinks in an hour will put you over .12.
Another of Gibson's "intimates" is spinning the tale of Mel's drive as a suicide attempt. The slurs that came out of Mel's mouth Thursday morning are also spun by the source as part of an "alcoholic blackout." With a .12 blood level? Possible, I suppose, but highly unlikely. Particularly when we're discussing someone with a history of liking his booze.
And as his people were focusing on drinking, Gibson was moving further and further into Fatty Arbuckle territory. Actually, there's a significant difference between the two cases. Notably that Arbuckle was actually innocent.
The most important time period in any scandal is the first 24 hours. Almost always, the first day will determine how it plays out. Sure, there's the Clinton scandals, but President Clinton was more practiced at damage control than anyone else in history. Hardly a month passed without something popping out of the woodwork (usually something self-created) that threatened to destroy his career. Bill Clinton is what is commonly referred to as "the exception that proves the rule."
Not only did Mel piss away the first 24 hour cycle, he pissed away the subsequent three. Of course, he gets it now. He released this statement this morning.
"There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.
"I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.
"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.
"I'm not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.
"I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.
"This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. It's about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad."
Not bad. Not great, but not bad. Had this statement come out on Friday night or Saturday morning, Mel probably wouldn't be where he is now.
The problem is that he's still clinging to an underlying, flawed premise that hasn't served him all that well so far - that he said anti-Semetic things because he's a drunk, as opposed to being an anti-Semite who happened to get drunk and stupid. That's elementary, my dear Watson. But it is an impressive demonstration of how dodgeball is played. If John Kerry could do that well, he'd probably be president today.
If this were anything other than an excercise in damage control, Gibson's statement would have gone something like this.
"In the last several days I have come to realize that I have a problem with Jews. It is completely irrational and contrary to everything I know intellectually, and against my own personal experience with Jewish people through my career.
You are all familiar with the statements my father has made over the years. As you can imagine, I was raised hearing these things and they warped a fundamental part of my personality. I do not blame this on my drinking problem, and I renounce anyone who tries to explain my conduct away in such a manner. These are seperate issues in my life. Alcoholism is a disease. Anti-Semitism and bigotry of any kind is a moral weakness.
I am truly sorry for any pain that my remarks have caused. There is no way that I can truly express my profound shame and remorse for the hurt caused by my behaviour on Friday morning. I regret deeply not only the offense I have caused the Jewish community, but the message that this has sent to my seven children. I have struggled to stop my passing along my moral weakness to my children, and it is now obvious that I have failed. There is no greater failure than that.
I cannot expect the public to forget this incident and I do not expect anyone to forgive it. But I do want it known that I will fight for the rest of my life to redeem myself in the eyes of my children. Right now, that is the only thing I care about.
I must now leave the public eye for a time to work on both my disease and my character flaws. This is not an easy task, but it is one that I will prove myself equal to. If any good is to come of this, it is that my children can learn from my example, and know firsthand what deep hurt such feelings can cause." I'm pretty fucking good, huh? And no one's paying me a hundred grand a year to write it. Perhaps someone should.
Gibson's mea culpa is probably too little too late. It's good enough for Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, but that's another matter altogether. The ADL is a political organization, and they can't be seen as rebuking someone who is extending their hand in apology. The ADL is donation-funded, and they have their own PR strategy to consider. Kahane Chai might kick Mel in the balls, but not the ADL.
Gibson's biggest problem from here on in is going to be not with Jews, but with the broader public. How many people do you think will want to be seen buying a ticket for The Passion 2: Revenge of the Christ when, say, a Holocaust survivour might see them? Would you want your friends and neighbours see you supporting someone who has said the things Mel Gibson now admits to?
To be a successful actor, the public has to be willing to suspend disbelief to accept his performance. It will be difficult to accept Mel Gibson playing a soldier that isn't German for the forseeable future. Films like Hotel Rwanda are forever gone to him.
There's also the matter of common decency. I can't imagine that many people would a concept album from Michael Jackson about the Boy Scouts. That's why there isn't a record company on the planet that would finance one. On Friday morning, Gibson tore down that fourth wall and everything he does from now on will probably be seen through the prism of his comments about Jews.
Mel Gibson did mere seconds what 17 consecutive remakes of What Women Want couldn't - they limited what the public is willing to accept from him. Sure, he might be able to maintain some kind of freakish celebrity at some level. But I'm pretty sure that he'll never again be thought of "Oscar winning film-maker, Mel Gibson" again.
Well, maybe in Damascus. They kind of dig that kind of thinking there.
Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now By: B.B King From: Live at the Regal
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