In Roger Ebert’s four star review of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ he expressed the following sentiment: “My own feeling is that Gibson’s film is not anti-Semitic, but reflects a range of behavior on the part of its Jewish characters, on balance favorably. The Jews who seem to desire Jesus’ death are in the priesthood, and have political as well as theological reasons for acting.” His argument proved fair in the sense that it assumed an unspoken complexity to Gibson’s film that required an extreme act of faith on the part audience to discredit his overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Jews (you know, the same kind of faith required to comfortably sit through the film).

Then again, no one claimed that The Passion expressed its message (if any) subtly. The film was an unwieldy hammer striking (quite near literally) at the heads of its viewers. If Gibson intended the role of the Jews to appear as balanced as everything else, perhaps he shouldn’t have utilized such subtlety in portraying the multi-faceted Jewish race as he did. That is, if you believe Ebert’s argument here in the first place – which I don’t.

One thing’s for sure now, even Ebert will be hard-pressed to defend him. Yeah, I know, the media’s already begun the slow bludgeoning process by which they club the public endlessly over the head with this story while ignoring far more pertinent issues. In my defense, I’m not the media at large and, unlike them, I’ll say my piece on the subject and be done with it.

With all the recent dirt on Gibson surfacing it has recently occurred to me that his most important role was as Jerry Fletcher in Conspiracy Theory in the sense that it illustrated what a batty lunatic he was. Certainly at the time no one read that performance as autobiographical. But immediately following the release of The Passion, rumors began to surface about his unusual views and his almost fanatic religious devotion. Oh, and let’s not forget his father’s unfortunate remarks about how the Holocaust never happened.

Well, like father, like son. Leave it to Mel to sniff out a Zionist plot against the drunk drivers of America. One of the arguments he (allegedly) spouted off to the arresting officer (allegedly Jewish) concerned the notion that Jews (allegedly) started all wars. Now that just doesn’t hold up. I’m pretty sure the Germans instigated WWII and arguably, the Serbs are to blame for WWI following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. I say this as a person of both German and Serbian descent. Nevertheless, the fact remains, no evidence that I can perceive places the blame squarely on the Jews.

But nevermind all that. All that matters is that the aftermath of this incident should tarnish Mel’s career enough to make it exceedingly difficult for him to ever again successfully promote another film. Look for his forthcoming Apocalypto to open to dwindling box office receipts when set against his bafflingly popular Passion of the Christ. After all, he’s already been honored more than necessary. And to think, when Leni Riefenstahl’s visage flashed across the screen during the Oscar ceremony honoring those who have passed on, she was met with scattered applause. Yet, in the past the Academy has been all too eager to hand out awards to a man less talented and debatably far more prejudiced. Oh, the bitter irony!