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Saturday, February 21, 2004
I've read a lot about how Hutton Gibson (Mel's father) denies the Holocaust, and spews vitriole regarding the Jewish community. Being a skeptic, I decided to see what Snopes had to say about the rumors:
Yes, the excerpts quoted above which are represented as appearing in the 9 March 2003 edition of The New York Times Magazine are accurate; they were drawn from a piece about Mel Gibson, his religion, and his father entitled "Is the Pope Catholic . . . Enough?" However, the quotes are selective, the commentary lopsided, and the overall tone suggests without real evidence that the opinions of Hutton Gibson, the actor's father, are necessarily those of his son.
Mel Gibson is a Catholic traditionalist who has used some of the monies he has earned as an actor to fund construction of a chapel in the Malibu, California, area. This chapel, Holy Family, is one of 600 traditionalist chapels in operation today (where, unlike most modern Catholic churches, Sunday Mass is still conducted entirely in Latin) and is not recognized by the Holy See. Catholic traditionalists view modern church reforms as the work of either foolish liberals or hellbent heretics, preferring for themselves a version of Catholicism as it was practiced prior to the reforms enacted by the Second Vatican Council (commonly known as Vatican II) between 1963 and 1965.
Mel Gibson's 84-year-old father, Hutton Gibson, may be considered an eccentric, a crackpot, or an anti-Semite (or some combination thereof) depending upon how charitably one views his utterances and beliefs about religion and politics, but one cannot validly infer from the quoted New York Times Magazine article that Mel Gibson shares any or all of his father's more controversial beliefs. Mel himself neither affirms nor denies the opinions voiced by his father, but even if he were inclined towards the latter he'd be unlikely to publicly voice such criticism in accordance with the "Honor thy father and thy mother" commandment. One paragraph from the original New York Times article not mentioned in the e-mail cited above addresses how much commonality of viewpoint there may be between father and son:
Whether any of this has rubbed off on Hutton's son Mel is an open question. A church elder at Holy Family says that while the two share the same foundation of faith, Mel Gibson parts company with his father on many points. "He doesn't go along with a lot of what his dad says," he says. And beyond claiming to have seen the plans for Holy Family and attended services with the congregation, Hutton Gibson [who lives in Houston] has no apparent connection to his son's church in California.
Personally, I don't care about Gibson's father. I still want to see the movie.
UPDATE: Read this review. Now I really want to see this movie.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Ebert's review (a thumbs up) was just on the local TV station here. This is the first time I have been able to see clips of the movie for myself. The more reviews I see, the less anti-Semitic ranting I seem to hear from the reviewers.Labels: Archives_2004
.: posted by
Dave
4:30 PM
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