I believe you, Mel

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 7:27 AM on October 11, 2006.

Snippets of Mel Gibson's interview with Diane Sawyer have been released by ABC. You'll read the same bits everywhere:

"It was just the stupid rambling of a drunkard, you know and ... what I need to do to heal myself and be assuring and allay the fears of others and to heal them if they had any heart wounds from something I may have said."

And:

"So, this is the last thing I want to be is that kind of a monster."

"That kind of monster," eh? Actually, I'm sort of inclined to believe Gibson. In his world, in the world in which he was raised, I'm not sure his comments were quite the faux pas they are in the rest of the world. I also don't think he, and others who believe that the Passion was "just an accurate portrayal of the Gospels," understands the damage that that particular interpretation has sown.

And think of the psychic cost of being forced to understand that your father is a dangerous bigot.

So I guess the point is that I don't give a flying f**k about Gibson the individual. He can understand or not understand. It'll only make his life more interesting to get it. It's everyone else who I care about.

But here's the real scoop: Gibson never said anything at all about the Jews. What he said was: "I hate Juice":

Tagged as: religion, mel, gibson, celebrity, anti-semitism

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.