This is more of a rambling than a thought-out post. Don’t be surprised if it ends abruptly; in fact, I’m not even sure how it will end. I suppose we’ll find out together.
(EDIT: This post contains some harsh quoted language. I blanked it out the best I could.)
When I was a kid, I felt like I really “knew” celebrities — like, I can honestly remember thinking that if I somehow had the opportunity to run into Harrison Ford, or Ray Harryhausen, or Sam Kinison, or any of the guys from Motley Crue, I just knew we would be life long pals! Unfortunately those opportunities never presented themselves to me and the world will never know if Han Solo and I could have been BFFs.
If you think about famous people you might actually want to meet, the least interesting of the bunch would have to be actors. At least (many) musicians are performing music and singing words they created. There aren’t a lot of kids who long to meet their favorite directors or writers, but those are the people who really make movies. Actors aren’t much more than puppets, performing other people’s work. The older I get, the sillier it seems to look up to or even want to meet someone simply because their DNA gave them high cheekbones, a slim waist and a great smile.
But there’s something about actors that makes you feel like you know them, and when actors do something incredibly “out of character” (so-to-speak), it shocks us. The concept of rich people doing stupid things is not a new phenomenon — I suspect rich people have been doing things since the dawn of “rich people” — but in todays lightning fast multimedia world, it’s literally amazing how quickly word travels. Thanks to the wonders of cell phone video and YouTube, I have witnessed a drunk David Hasselhoff eating a hamburger, Alec Baldwin calling his daughter a “thoughtless little pig”, and Michael Richards flushing his career away with a single, hate-filled racist rant. Hell, thanks to TMZ, I probably knew about the expletive written on Lindsey Lohan’s fingernail before her own attorney did. And when Britney Spears shaved her head, grabbed an umbrella, and attacked a car, I got to watch it (almost) live.
If rich people aren’t going to stop doing stupid things (and hey, why would they — they’re rich!) then at least you would think they would stop doing them in places where they can be recorded. Fortunately for us, money doesn’t equate to intelligence.
The latest celebrity to publicly unravel is Mel Gibson. I know Mel Gibson from the Mad Max trilogy and his Lethal Weapon movies. He seems like a nice enough guy — heck, if we ever ran into each other, I’ll bet we’d be friends! Or at least, at one time I would have bet that.
In 2006 Gibson was pulled over for driving 25mph over the posted speed limit, while drunk. For most Hollywood actors, getting a DUI is no big deal. Gibson made it a big deal, however, by doing the following:
According to the incident report by Los Angeles County Deputy James Mee, obtained by TMZ.com, the actor repeatedly said, “My life is f**ked” before launching into an anti-Semitic outburst. The report claims Gibson said, “F**king Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?” The actor is also reported to have threatened, “You motherf**ker. I’m going to f**k you” to the deputy. Mee’s report adds the allegation that Gibson told officers he “owns Malibu” and the star would spend all his money “to get even with me.” He is also believed to have said to a female officer on the scene, “What do you think you’re looking at, sugar t**ts?” – Hollywood.com
Jesus. Mel wasn’t even that mad when Toecutter’s gang ran over his wife and kid in the first Mad Max movie!
So Mel did what every Hollywood celebrity would do. He apologized, went to rehab, and laid low for a while. At least, that’s what you’re supposed to do. When promoting your new movie, you’re not supposed to call the interviewer an a**hole. And what you’re really not supposed to do is show up in the headlines four years later for an even worse outburst.
Gibson is splitting with his girlfriend and baby mama, Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva. During the split, Gibson left hours of voice mail messages like this one on Oksana’s phone:
“You’re an embarrassment to me. You look like a f***ing pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n***ers, it will be your fault. How dare you act like such a b***h when I have been so f***ng nice. I am going to come and burn the f***ing house down… but you will **** me first. Look what you did to me… look what you are… look what every part of you is… f***ing fake… f***ing fake. You are the most synthetic person… who the f**k are you?”
Wow. That’s a lot of ****ing *’s! And wouldn’t it be a happy day for Mel if that were the worst of it? It’s not. Apparently there are also audio recordings of Mel admitting to punching his girlfriend in the face and telling her she deserved it. And when I say “apparently”, I mean “the tapes have leaked to the internet and you can listen to what a jerk Mel Gibson is“.
Those of you still with me just witnessed the end of Mel Gibson’s career. Between the time I started writing this post this morning and the time I finished it this evening, the William Morris Agency dropped Gibson as a client. Anyone holding their breath for Mad Max IV might be disappointed.
She shouldn’t dress like such a floozy I say!
I had legit arguments of why I don’t think his career will be ended by this. I typed it all up and then deleted it to say that instead.
“If rich people aren’t going to stop doing stupid things…then at least you would think they would stop doing them in places where they can be recorded.”
And in the age of the cell phone, that means everywhere, which is part of my oft-asserted aversion to the things. Half of the people you walk past in the mall are carrying a device that can record video and audio anywhere, as well as take pictures and generate logs identifying the when-and-who of call activity. And These Mel Gibson voicemails (recordings, by definition) are a great example how people still don’t seem to get that we are all of us living in a self-imposed state of constant surveillance.
Now excuse me while I go smooth out the wrinkles in my tinfoil hat.
You left out all the sports heroes that kids look up to. All of the above just goes to show what great actors these people really are. They can fool us into believing that they are great people we would want as friends, when underneath they are hiding the fact that they are either ignorant, bigoted, lacking any morals, self-centered, cruel, or all of the above. We all know people like this, but because they aren’t actors we choose not to have them as friends or associate with them. Actors just hide it well. Until they quit acting and self-destruct.