Indian Comics Irregular #144

As you've undoubtedly heard, Mel Gibson has been in the news recently. A
website summarized what happened when the cops pulled him over for speeding July
28:

[A]fter allegedly running for his own vehicle when asked to get
into the squad car (and subsequently being cuffed), he commenced
swearing like a sailor, threatening to "get even" with the cop who
was taking him in. In what the officer reported were the actor's
own words, revenge would be simple because, as Gibson repeatedly
told the arresting officer, he "own[s] Malibu." When that didn't
work, Gibson allegedly took the old, reliable anti-Semitic route.
Again according to the arresting officer's (alleged) report, the
actor went off a tirade, apropos of nothing: "'F*****g Jews. ...
The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.' Gibson
then asked the deputy, 'Are you a Jew?'"

These comments should not have come as a surprise. With his hit movie "The
Passion of the Christ," Gibson has given us several clues about his beliefs. As
Tim Rutten explained in the LA Times, 8/5/06:

From the outset, Gibson was clear that the principal sources for
his retelling of the crucifixion story were the Gospel of Matthew,
the most problematic of the four Christian passion narratives, and
the writings of Anne Catherine Emmerich, a 19th century nun and
mystic who recorded her anti-Semitic "visions" of Jesus' arrest and
execution. The filmmaker, in fact, reportedly keeps a relic of the
nun.

Then there was Gibson's repeated refusal to disavow the views of
his father and spiritual mentor, Hutton Gibson, a notorious
anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, who cheerfully shares public
platforms with unrepentant neo-fascists like the odious Willis
Carto. No one can demand that another person repudiate their
father, but it's perfectly possible to say, "I love my father, but
I don't agree with his ideas." Somehow, Gibson's refusal to do
that never bothered "The Passion's" fans.

What does all this portend for Gibson's upcoming Maya-themed thriller,
"Apocalypto"? In her Indian Country Today column of 8/11/06, Suzan Shown Harjo
sounded a warning:

Gibson is rumored to have fallen off the wagon while on location in
Mexico. Hosts of entertainment news TV shows are saying that he
started drinking when he had to delay the opening of "Apocalypto"
from August to December. One blamed this bout with alcohol on
"the pressures of the rains and working with a cast of all Native
Americans and Latin Americans."

Watch out, Indian country. Before we know it, the entire Gibson
meltdown will be the fault of those hundreds of thousands of Maya
people who didn't collapse with the pyramids, and the governor of
California will find a way to blame it on casinos near the Pacific
Coast Highway.

Gibson has said that the movie has been an anthropological journey
for him. Terrific. We'll probably get the version of history that
says the Maya did themselves in by the excesses of civilization and
improvident environmental stewardship.

The sound of the film is a Mayan dialect very few Maya people speak
today and what's said to be ancient Mayan music. That is, I guess,
to make the people incomprehensible and more like scenery, pottery,
jewelry and makeup than like human beings.

The film script is a super-duper secret written by Gibson and his
assistant, Farhad Safina. The buzz is that it's Gibson's
bloodiest, goriest movie so far. That makes it about a 15 on a
blood-and-gore scale of one to 10.

Great. We can look forward to a Christmas holiday bloodfest that
invites people to hate Indians and to think that we close some
ceremonies to hide human sacrifices, rather than for privacy from
prying eyes and camera lenses.

Rob Schmidt
Blue Corn Comics