He's the much-loved star of Mad Max, Lethal Weapon, Braveheart and Chicken Run, a man with a filmography that encompasses everything from action hits to family favourites. But over the past two weeks a darker side to Mel Gibson has emerged. Taped phone calls between the actor and his estranged girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, reveal a shocking level of prejudice and aggression. Fans are starting to ask if it's still okay to like his old films; he was a different person then, wasn't he? Actually, no, he wasn't - and the real question is not how Hollywood will react to these new revelations, but why it has nurtured people like Gibson for so long.
If you haven't heard the tapes in question, you may not want to, but suffice to say that they feature the star using the most offensive possible language about Hispanic people and African Americans. He also hints at a desire to kill and bury Grigorieva, and says she deserves to be gang-raped. Allegations that he punched her in the face and attacked their child are subject to legal dispute, and his lawyers are arguing that the tapes may have been doctored (one wonders if they contained comments she felt were too personal for public scrutiny), but his words are nevertheless clear.
What's less well known is that Gibson has a long history of making untoward comments. He has often railed against what he calls political correctness; four years ago he came to the defence of a television host who had been using racist language, suggesting it was the kind of slip-up anyone could make and didn't mean the man was really a racist at heart. Accidents may happen. But as long ago as 1989 he had the initial director of Bird On A Wire sacked because he didn't want to "work with a fairy", and he went on to make homophobic remarks in interviews, despite noting that he had met gay people whom he liked. In 2006 it was the turn of Jewish people to be on the receiving end of one of his rants, unwisely delivered to a police officer - he blamed them for starting every war in world history. And earlier this year he was in trouble for apparently calling a TV presenter an asshole, with his publicist frantically stepping in to claim that the remark had been targeted at him instead and was entirely fair.
Are we holding Gibson to too high a standard? Doesn't everybody say stupid things sometimes? He has sometimes apologised, but his apologies are curious in themselves - he has blamed drink, and stress, and manic depression, never himself. This time he has, perhaps wisely, said nothing at all. A popular YouTube video pits his taped rants at Grigorieva against Christian Bale's rant at a technician last year. Bale was subject to plenty of criticism when that incident occurred, but, in notable contrast, he was utterly contrite in the aftermath, apologising unreservedly and going to considerable lengths to make amends.
Though he's had plenty of highly placed friends in the past, it's curious how few people have spoken out in Gibson's defence this time. Notable among them is Whoopi Goldberg. "I know Mel, and I know he’s not a racist," she said last week. "I don’t like what he’s done, make no mistake... but I can’t sit and say that he’s a racist having spent time with him in my house with my kids." The two have been friends for many years so it seems reasonable to give her remarks some credence. Still, how much this will help Gibson is debatable, given that Goldberg herself alienated many people in the industry with her recent remarks on the Roman Polanski case, arguing that "whatever he did, it wasn't rape rape."
Doubtless Goldberg simply feels she is sticking up for friends in trouble, friends who are widely misunderstood and are easy victims for a press hungry for scandal. It's hard for anyone to believe that the people they care about could do bad things. The problem with Hollywood - and with celebrity in general - is that it extends this instinct to defend one's friends way beyond people who actually know each other. A popular celebrity can feel like a friend to everybody. We have an emotional investment in believing in the innocence of people whose work we connect with, even in the face of mounting evidence.
This problem is compounded where actors are concerned. Not only do we feel a connection to the stars themselves, we associate them - consciously or unconsciously - with the characters they play. This can put actors who play bad guys at risk of threats and even physical assault by members of the public, but often its effects work in the reverse direction, and are much subtler. Having attached ourselves to people in this way, we find ourselves in a position where admitting their failings seems to involve admitting our own, confessing that we are poor judges of character. Of course it's illusory - the characters we got close to were not the real people - but humans are hard wired to want a world that's safe and predictable, even to the point of simply refusing to believe things that make it seem less so. Studios understand this emotional investment and use it to encourage us to buy their products.
This is something Polanski has clearly understood all along. Rather than denying the statutory rape of Samantha Geimer in 1977, he boasted about it in exile: "If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press... But fucking, you see, and young girls - judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!" That the young girl in question may not have wanted what happened, and may have been in too vulnerable a position to stand up for herself, didn't come into it. Yet whilst the label 'paedophile' attracts vigilante violence when applied to ordinary people, Polanski's celebrity status changes the way his actions are understood. Furthermore, it has led to them being interpreted in light of his difficult life, a courtesy one cannot imagine being extended to the average rapist.
If you think this is a feature of modern Hollywood, think again. When, in 1942, Errol Flynn was tried for the statutory rape of two teenage girls, support for the popular star - who had just played the dashing hero in The Adventures Of Robin Hood - was almost universal. There was little doubt that sexual contact had taken place but the girls were presented as disreputable liars ; Flynn was celebrated as a bit of a lad, and the expression 'in like Flynn' entered the language as he escaped without penalty.
Numerous stars have been caught up in such scandals over the years. Burt Lancaster was well known for his aggression toward the women with whom he became intimately involved. Madonna is one of very few celebrities to have gone public about being on the receiving end of domestic violence, though charges against her former husband Sean Penn were dropped when he plead guilty to a misdemeanour. And this Wednesday, Charlie Sheen will appear in court facing charges of domestic violence against his former girlfriend Brooke Mueller.
What has changed in recent years is that behaviour like this - no matter how it is ultimately handled by the courts - is meeting increasing public criticism. Ironically, back in 1989, it was partially prejudice that saved Gibson's neck. Although public attitudes to homophobia were already changing, he was seen, in the wake of Paul Hogan's transphobic ball-grabbing Crocodile Dundee, as a comedy Australian, a bit of a throwback but loveable really. Now the fans are less forgiving, and the message to movie stars should be clear - if you want to be seen as everybody's friend, and to have the kind of career that depends on that, you need to start behaving like a good friend, even when you're out of character. Polanski may have got off the hook and the internet may be full of blogs attacking Grigorieva, but the tide is turning, and it's time Hollywood cleaned up its act.
