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Mel Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American-born Australian-reared movie actor, director, and producer best known for his role in the Lethal Weapon series and Braveheart.

Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York as one of 11 children, but raised in Australia from the age of 12. He maintained his U.S. citizenship.

In 1996 he received two Academy Awards (Best Director and Best Picture) for the film Braveheart (1995).

Following a victory on the Jeopardy! game show, Gibson's father Hutton moved his family to Australia in the 1970s in protest of the Vietnam War and because he believed that changes in American society were immoral.

Hutton is a member of the "traditionalist" Catholic Church, who believes that the Mass should still be said in Latin and that all of the Second Vatican Council is in error. Hutton Gibson holds that the Second Vatican Council was a secret anti-Christian plot by both Masons and Jews. These are widely viewed as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Hutton also holds to other conspiracy theories, such as his claim that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were not carried out Saudi Arabian Muslim onboard the plane, but rather were carried out by "remote control" by a different party.

Hutton is a Holocaust denial; he claims that it is impossible for the Holocaust to have happened, since, in his view, there would be no way to get rid of so many bodies. He claims that "There weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe, and says that there were more Jews in Europe after World War II, statements disputed by all historians. In support of his father, Mel Gibson claims that his father's beliefs do not amount to Holocaust denial,

Mel Gibson has made a number of public statements recently supporting his father's views, and has donated money to financed the construction of a traditionalist cathedral in Malibu, California called Holy Family. This church will preach his father's anti-Catholic conspiracy theories and related beliefs.

The Passion

Mel Gibson recent complete the controversial movie, The Passion, a 12-hour film in the Aramaic language. The movie has received praise by many conservative Christians, but has been heavily criticised by both Catholic and Jewish scholars as promoting anti-Semitism, as violating Catholic teachings on the New Testament, as including many gross historical errors of fact. When a commitee of interfaith scholars attempted to work with Mr. Gibson on the issue, all efforst were rebuffed for several months. When an interfaith committee eventually wrote a review of the script, Mel Gibson threatened them with legal action.

Gibson was asked if his movie would be offensive to Jews today; his response was "It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible. But when you look at the reasons Christ came, he was crucified-he died for all mankind and he suffered for all mankind. So that, really, anyone who transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own culpability." Jewish groups reject such statements as false accusations of deicide, which are held to be deeply anti-Semitic.

Gibson originally claimed that this movie was based solely on the New Testament; however it has more recently been revealed that it is inspired by the writings of a 19th-century nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, who wrote a number of grotesque anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil-rights group, recently issued a statement on Mel Gibson's The Passion. In part, it reads:

Throughout history Christian dramatizations of the passion, i.e. the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, have fomented anti-Semitic attitudes and violence against the Jewish people. During the past forty years the Roman Catholic and most Protestant churches have issued pastoral and scholarly documents that interpret the death and resurrection of Jesus in their historical and theological contexts. These churches repudiate the teachings that gave rise to Christian accusations that Jews were "Christ killers."

...In light of the numerous media accounts of Mel Gibson's upcoming film, "The Passion," the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) joined with the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in April, 2003 to assemble Jewish and Catholic scholars to evaluate an early version of the movie's screenplay (the names of the committee's nine scholars appear below).

The committee unanimously agreed that the screenplay reviewed was replete with objectionable elements that would promote anti-Semitism. Based upon the scholars' analysis of the screenplay, ADL has serious concerns regarding the Mr. Gibson's "The Passion" and asks:

Will the final version of The Passion continue to portray Jews as blood-thirsty, sadistic and money-hungry enemies of Jesus? Will it correct the unambiguous depiction of Jews as the ones responsible for the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus? Will it show the power of the rule of imperial Rome-including its frequent use of crucifixion-in first-century Palestine?...

...the final product must rid itself of fictitious non-scriptural elements (e.g. the high priest's control of Pontius Pilate, the cross built in the Temple at the direction of Jewish religious officials, excessive violence, Jews physically abusing Jesus before the crucifixion, Jews paying "blood money" for the crucifixion), all of which form an inescapably negative picture of Jewish society and leadership.

For filmmakers to do justice to the biblical accounts of the passion, they must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism. Absent such scholarly and theological understanding, productions such as "The Passion" could likely falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews.

ADL statement on Mel Gibson's The Passion

In recent weeks, Mel Bigson has made a number of statements that many Jewish leaders veer into blatant and undisguised anti-Semitism. In an interview in the New Yorker, Gibson charges that "modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church," and that he trimmed a scene from The Passion involving the Jewish high priest Caiaphas. He claimed that if he did not edit this scene out "they'd be coming after me at my house, they'd come to kill me." In response, Abraham Foxman, director of the ADL, publicly charged Gibson with anti-Semitism.

Related Materials:

Selected Filmography

• Signs (2002)
• We Were Soldiers (2002)
• Chicken Run (2000)
• The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
• The Patriot (2000)
• What Women Want (2000)
• PayBack (1999)
• Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
• Conspiracy Theory (1997)
• Fairy Tale: A True Story (1997, uncredited)
• Father's Day (1997, uncredited)
• Ransom (1996)
• Braveheart (1995, also directed)
• Pocahontas (1995, voice)
• Maverick (1994)
• The Man Without a Face (1993, also directed)
• Forever Young (1992)
• Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)
• Air America (1990)
• Bird on a Wire (1990)
• Hamlet (1990)
• Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
• Tequila Sunrise (1998)
• Lethal Weapon (1987)
• Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
• The Bounty (1984)
• Mrs. Soffle (1984)
• The River (1984)
• Attack Force Z (1982)
• The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
• Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
• Gallipoli (1981)
• Mad Max (1979)
• Tim (1979)
• Summer City (1977)

External Links

• snopes.com story about Mel Gibson and his father
• Anti-Defamation League FAQ on Mel Gibson's Passion
• Jewish civil rights leader says actor Mel Gibson espouses anti-Semitic views
• Mel Gibson's Passion movie elicits hatemail
• Passion plays in history and theology