Offensive outburst doesn't make Mel rotten to the core

Louis Nowra column in Thursday's Sydney Morning Herald brings a bit of sanity to the hoo-haa that's developed over Mel Gibson's fall from grace. Why does the media jump all over some people's public "sins" and ignore those of others? Mel Gibson blew it. So what? The guy has apologised. He's gone into rehad. He's paying a high price in his family. And was his drunken spree the result of the troubles between he and his wife?

Louis Nowra's says:
As every cop knows, drunks say the most terrible things. Black cops are racially abused by white drunks and vice versa. Woman cops are abused by drunken men ("What are you looking at, sugar tits?"). Experienced cops generally pay no attention because it is the drink or drugs talking.

Would you like to be held accountable for the things you say and do while inebriated? Endless amounts of time are spent in courts arguing this very thing, and often with the result a person is acquitted or convicted of a lesser misdemeanour.

Offensive outburst doesn't make Mel rotten to the core - Opinion - smh.com.au

THE recent international kerfuffle over Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic remarks created a blizzard of sanctimonious and hysterical attacks on the actor. I thought the incident was blown out of all proportion but there is something about the uproar which shows a disturbing trend in this era of media witch-hunts.

Let's look briefly at Gibson's scrape. He was pissed as a fart and told the arresting officer: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

As every cop knows, drunks say the most terrible things. Black cops are racially abused by white drunks and vice versa. Woman cops are abused by drunken men ("What are you looking at, sugar tits?"). Experienced cops generally pay no attention because it is the drink or drugs talking.

There has been a consistent strand to the attacks on Gibson, besides guilt by association (his father has insane ideas about Jews and the Holocaust) and that is that his inebriated comment reflects a core belief of his. Critics rest their case on the idea of in vino veritas, booze brings out the truth. But does it?

How many people have woken up the morning after getting plastered, hung over and filled with remorse at what they have done or said? They are remorseful because they did not mean the hurtful or hateful things they said and, in fact, their words or actions were totally uncharacteristic.

Years ago a drunken Elvis Costello made a racially offensive comment about Ray Charles. This comment, overheard in a bar, nearly cost Costello his career in the US and yet he was and is one of the great supporters and lovers of black music.

Take an example from literature.

When the letters of the fine British poet Philip Larkin were published, many people were horrified at the crass anti-Semitic and anti-black comments. The letters had been private and were obviously written to shock and even amuse some of his correspondents. The hysterical reaction by literary mavens overlooked the fact that Larkin was a devotee of black jazz musicians and never made publicly disparaging statements about Jews or blacks. Were the remarks his true beliefs or just the product of an uncensored mind?

The loudmouthed former Test cricketer Dean Jones was fired from his job as a commentator this week after he called a devout Muslim South African cricketer a terrorist. This was not part of his commentary but an offhand remark caught by an open microphone.

It's easy to imagine that Jones and his mates would have joked privately about the Muslim and they would have considered it a bit of harmless banter that in no way reflected their actual beliefs.

But does Jones really think that he's a terrorist? Absolutely not.

These examples have one thing in common. They were private comments not meant for public consumption. But, some people will say, they reflect the beliefs of those who said these awful things.

Our private thoughts can be unruly - obscene, sexist, racist and ridiculous. Sometimes we keep them to ourselves or share with others. Humans are driven by contradictions and there can be great divisions between our private and public thoughts, actions and words.

Our private selves can contain a swarm of ideas and imaginings that can be contradictory to the actual beliefs we express truthfully in public.

A feminist can have fantasies of being raped that sexually excite her, but be horrified by the notion of it happening in reality. Aborigines can talk among themselves about "white c---s" and yet work with, live with and love a white person. The expletive is why we have expletives - to let off steam or anger - and can even be humorous in the right context.

One has just to sit through the documentary The Aristocrats, in which comedians present filthy, obscene variations of a crude joke, to realise that there is a huge gulf between thinking hideous things and actually doing them.

Common to all these examples is that they were meant to be private before the media blew them up. If our thoughts and private conversations between friends were to be made public, how many of us could stand the scrutiny?

For me the racist abuse by Australian spectators of coloured cricketers is a public utterance and therefore to be condemned.

And I think the insulting and publicly expressed loony ideas about Jews from Gibson's sober father are terrible because you know they are his core beliefs.

As for his son's true beliefs about Jews, a couple of drunken offensive remarks will not tell us.