Defending the Indefensible: On Mel Gibson's Mixtape of Hate

Perhaps you've heard, Mel Gibson is outing his inner demons again. Now granted if the contents of the tape are revealed to be true, there's no legitimate "defense" for telling your wife she looks fit to be "gang-raped" (which, yes, I agree the sex-crime deserves 'precedent' over the "N-word" business). But per the "Defending the Indefensible" post/agenda, I think it's worth sprinkling some 'chill-out' on this story.

1. The bloodlust for these kind of stories is a little unseemly, don't you think? My blog-kingdom for a mirror to hold up in front of our collective media culture as they tweet and link with faces and iphones smeared with blood and feces and body parts from these freshly torn apart celebrities. I can't spit it better than Jay-Z in a freestyle jackals don't listen to, but I'd be less cynical if they so earnestly dug into institutional racism with the same hunger. Unless you exist in Mel Gibson's circle of peeps, his personal demons shouldn't be "news".

2. Personal demons is the thing here. Racists are humans also. I'm with Mike Epps on this "cry for help" angle. And this is why the NAACP and Jesse Jackson popping into the picture makes me want to call some of my homies and man-rape these dudes who leverage a story like this for their own agenda, but play no part in separating wheat from chaff in our hip hop culture, know nothing of a Lupe Fiasco or Jay Electronica, etc. etc. There is in fact work to be done, and there would be less if these dudes weren't holding racist parades over bullshit all the time.



3. And it is bullshit because what does one's celebrity's racism/misogyny mean to a much smarter tolerant American population at large? Sure, I can be shocked and put off by these surprising flare-ups, but no one in their right mind is co-signing these incidents. Way too much positive or more interesting stuff going on (like did LeBron choose yet?).  Back in the MLK days it's not some "A-lister" that got Martin to dreaming, it was the whole country co-signing the ignorant shit. It's no one person that wins or loses, it's when everyone implicitly or explicitly gets down with the program. If Mel had a tumblr called fuckyeahgangrape with a lot of followers, that would be cause for deeply furrowed brows, but clearly no one has been "liking" or reblogging the Gibson Hate Posts for a while.

4. Speaking of the actor/future blogger Mel Gibson, don't these alleged bits of dialogue sound oddly theatrical and dramatic. Isn't the line, "you look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault." cribbed straight from Pulp Fiction or some every other Quentin Tarantino project? Is it really that big a difference to YOU, random journalist/observer who doesn't know Mel Gibson from Martin Riggs, whether he says that stuff you would never say on the big screen or on a tape to his wife? I have an entry in my book on how to hold an Intervention for people who like the movie "Crash". This feels like something Sandra Bullock or Matt Dillon would say in Crash and people who hate that movie would roll their eyes, and those who like it say, "tsk, tsk, that is a bad racist right there".

5. But then again, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that these big Hollywood egos give their rants and explosive outbursts the same gusto that got them their A-list billing in the first place. My high school football coach used to say, you practice how you play. Or something like that. Perhaps a 'method acting' line of defense is in order here? If 50 can get props for losing weight, all Mel needs is a good role as a KKK member.

In that case I take back all of the above and simply say: pass the popcorn.

(xtra: when I first saw the pack of n's comment, I thought of this poor ottoman and how it was so clearly asking for it.)