Mel Gibson: A How Screwed Is That Guy? Round-Up
The first round of media analysis of How Mel Gibson's Anti-Semitic Tirade Will Affect His Career has arrived, with nearly everyone agreeing that Gibson's capping of his DUI arrest by accusing the "fucking Jews" of being "responsible for all the wars in the world" could possibly have some sort of undetermined negative impact on his future ability to make movies, or on the box office prospects of Apocalypto, his upcoming, Mayan-language adventure flick whose dialogue must now be scoured for hate speech cleverly masked by the Yucatec dialect. (Zero Wolf: "The tribal elders have selected you for human sacrifice. Please report to the altar atop the sacred pyramid in one hour to accept your fate." Jaguar Paw: "You go tell those fucking Jews to kiss my ass. I own this fucking jungle, sugar tits.") A round-up of early analyses and reactions:
· The Anti-Defamation League is less than thrilled with Gibson, and ABC already seems to be stepping away from Gibson's Holocaust miniseries project, which has been downgraded from "bad idea" to "What Holocaust project? We haven't even seen a script for this thing that we're not even sure we ever agreed to." [LAT]
· Disney is unsurprisingly quiet about how Gibson's anti-Semitic remarks might affect the box office of Apocalypto, a movie that will cost them tens of millions to distribute. [Variety]
· The Passion of the Christ set up Gibson with generations of "fuck you" money, but the media shitstorm "could prove damaging" to his filmmaking brand. Ya think? [THR]
· "It's a nuclear disaster for him. I don't see how he can restore himself," said a publicist who has represented Michael Jackson. Things are pretty bad when a guy who had to explain the purchase of the Elephant Man's bones and Crisco-sponsored Boy Scout sleepovers thinks you're fucked. [AP]