Dionysus to Gibson: Beware of Cat!
I've been reading the reviews of Apocalypto.
Did Mel Gibson kill some babies somewhere that I'm not aware of? This guy is getting such bad press, all of the time, you'd think he was personally raping every single film critic from LA to New York City, and then asking them to write a review for his next film.
I'll preface this by saying, I haven't yet seen Apocalypto. From what it sounds like, it is to the Mayan people what a cat-o-nine tails was to Jim Caviezel. An all out blood bath as a way of communicating the horrors of human sacrifice, and how said sacrificing of entire populations could be potentially damaging to a civilization on its way up. Or down, as I'm assuming the message is here. Aside from agreeing with Gibson that the Mayans were way out of line in their religious practices (many Leftist critics would probably berate me for the previous statement; who am I to judge a culture's religious rites?), I also agree that mass executions were, as far as I can imagine, rather messy indeed.
Having not seen the film, let's assume for a moment that, as several critics and bloggers have labelled it, the film was overtly exploitive. Then what we have on our hands here is a collection of critics who have forgotten how to watch a movie. These are the same people who will probably tell you that Joe D'Amato was a genius of horror, or that Wes Craven (in his youth) really knew how to make pulling a teenage girls intestines out and raping her repeatedly say something poignant about the war in Vietnam better than any war movie could. The exploitation flick has been around for as long as film has been considered an art form (or in this case, entertainment). And for the most part, with the exception of very conservative groups, they have been roundly accepted by the film community as either clever satires of the human condition, or just great fun. Be that as it may, if when I sit down to watch Gibson's latest "shocking" and "offensive" filmmaking effort, and find myself sitting in front of a horror-fest about the Mayan civilization, then I'll probably have as good a time as I did when I sat down and accepted Deodato's vision of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon in 'Cannibal Holocaust'.
Now let's assume that Gibson meant not to be exploitive, but to be literal. Let's say, he put on film what anyone can see the Mayans painted on their buildings what we know to be historically accurate: that the high priests of this particular region of Latin America were tearing a lot of hearts out of people's chests. It has been argued that none of this is true. That the Mayan people were very mathematically inclined, that they were architects centuries ahead of their time, and that they were brilliant strategists beyond their years. How could they possibly be blood-thirsty monsters? But none of their achievments of society and art is being denied. To bring it into current terms: am I to believe that the Muslim people are a group of prehistoric sand-dwellers, hijacking planes and blowing up Israel all of the time, in the name of Allah? I'd be ignorant to accept this notion. But not ignorant to accept that a vast number of highly influential religious zealots within the Islamic community could very well erase both the struggles of that community to grow, and the perception of that community's people by the rest of the non-Muslim world; possibly for the rest of all of history. From what it sounds like, Gibson isn't saying "look at these lunatics, The Mayans"; instead he is saying, "look at what these lunatics did to their people, The Mayans". If I find no exploitation of that fact, and merely a historical account of this message, then who am I to decry the movie's violence any more than the blood that was shed in films like Schindler's List, or Saving Private Ryan. Both very violent films, justifiably in every way; also both exceptionally entertaining as movies. But what critic in their right mind would call either exploitive? For all we know, Apocalypto could visually have looked exploitive simply for the fact that none of us has ever seen someone's heart cut out of their chest with a sacrificial flint knife and handed to them before the sun god. But we've all seen the atrocities of the gun. For all I know, the critics who saw Apocalypto as exploitive just can't imagine such a thing as mass human sacrifice outside of the cinema, and they aren't mature enough to allow someone like Mel Gibson (gasp) to handle such a topic (exploitive or otherwise).
Which leads me to the man himself. As far back as I can remember, the evolution of the Mel Gibson Witch Hunt goes something like this (beginning with his success as a Hollywood Hunk):
Lethal Weapon saw Mel fighting crime as a smart-ass, devil-may-care heartthrob with lucious locks and an itchy trigger finger. We all loved him, even through a good chunk of the sequels. Then he made a series of rather weepy, cliche message tales of strong will and the endurance of the human spirit. We still loved him though. He peppered these with some light-hearted comedies and a run of questionable chick flicks. For the most part, he remained "cool" in the eyes of the Hollywood community. Braveheart won the hearts of the academy, but had some Wallace historians scratching their heads (if for anything else, not recalling if their Scottish ancestor looked that good in a kilt). America felt pumped, like it did after Rocky ran up those steps, and we all gave Mel a collective pat on the back. Using this momentum, he made The Patriot. Adhering to his rather elementary interpretation of historical events (though not altogether inaccurate), he gave us another group of underdogs (The United States of America) as heroes, and a very clear-cut adversary of evil (England). The fireworks shone just a little brighter that summer. At this point, we were still giving our Hollywood Hunk History Hero our thumbs up, and a "go get 'em Tiger" fist to the jaw.
Until he dared announce his affiliation with a Western religion. The day Mel told us he was a Catholic, and that he would be producing a big budget movie about the death of Jesus Christ, a hush fell over the Los Angeles area so still you could hear a rosary drop. Everyone looked around nervously. Then came a veritible hail storm of back lash that hasn't quelled to this day. People who hadn't even seen The Passion of the Christ were going after this movie like it was a positive biopic about the life of Hitler. These were the same people who, a little more than a decade prior, were attacking the Christian community for not even having seen The Last Temptation of Christ before laying into it.
Mel Gibson made a film that was a literal adaptation of the age old book of Luke? For shame, Mel. If only you had been more like Martin Scorsese, or Ron Howard, and made a film based on philisophical interpretation of the life of Jesus from "scholars" still alive today, then maybe we would have been more receptive to your vision of the Mayan people. But you broke the one rule too true in this town of tinsel and flash bulbs. You admitted to being a Christian. You might as well of just put a big dunce cap on, and packed your bags for the Mid-West. This is Hollywood, Bub; we're an advanced culture, open-minded and progressive, and we have no time for anyone who lays claim to a belief in the God of Abraham. That's so 2000 years ago, man. If only you had announced that you were converting to Islam, and were producing a big budget movie on the death of Mohammad. Then maybe the people down at the LA and NY Times would have slapped their Leftist seal of approval on your ass, kissed it, then hailed you as "daring" and "intelligent". But you had to be "controversial", didn't you? You had to play by your own, whacked out, Right Wing, Scary, Christian Fundamental rules. For shame, Mel...for shame.
The man got drunk in Malibu! He was pulled over for it! He had pictures taken of him with his arms around girls!
If this had been Mick Jagger, or Robert Downey Jr. (and it has), we would have either A. thought it was awesome, dude. Or B. Forgiven them after some half-assed apology to the nation. Mel Gibson made such apology (minus the half-assery), but was neither forgiven nor given "awesome" status. If we were to put a tape recorder up to half of Mel's critics at a crowded bar in Malibu on a Saturday night, we'd most likely have to bleep much of the recording out, and a lot of thick-framed glasses-wearing hipsters would have a lot of explaining to do. But they probably wouldn't have to. The man has struggled for years to escape an embarassment of a white supremicist upbringing (which is probably way more blown out of proportion than any of our own kind-of awkwardly intolerant uncles or fathers drunkedly fearing an onslaught of Spics from the South). He has, himself, denounced both his father, and his unpopular view of the Jewish people. One drunken slip and the man is Himmler for the rest of his natural life; despite his apology, despite his regret. Where was Jerry Seinfeld on Letterman allowing Mel to say his piece? Too risky. The man might come on and sieg heil at the audience. Hell, worse, he might try to convert everyone to "his side". The things Mel Gibson could do to us all makes Hollywood shudder to think. One reporter ventured out to his ranch to interview him about the DUI arrest; probably scared to find empty Jack Daniels bottles and dead Jews. He prefaced the article by admitting, he didn't know what to expect. What he found was a very sober, coherent man, sorry for what he had done and (like so many Americans, Left and Right Wing) still battling alcoholism. Surprise, glib reporter! Who remained appropriately glib about the whole situation, so as not to fall out of grace with all the other reporters who still believe that Gibson Ranch is akin to Auschwitz after a night of heavy Rumplemintz drinking. And all the reporters who won't give the man an inch under any circumstance because he simply can't shake that whole Christianity thing.
So where does a man like Mel go now? What will become of his cinema? Will there be any left? A man can only handle so much critical torment before throwing in the towel. And despite what one may think of the subject matter of a Gibson film: he really isn't such a bad filmmaker, cinematically speaking. He's just, by outing himself as a Christian, inadvertantly entered himself into the political coliseum of fun and games; and found himself face to face with a very enormous lion.
