Why Mel Gibson does not deserve his Order of Australia
The actor-director makes a fine Trumpian ambassador and deserves a big star on Hollywood Boulevard but he should not be counted among the great or good of the Australian film industry.
Mad Max is back in the public consciousness. Mel Gibson, along with fellow Trumpians Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, were named as POTUS’s “Special Ambassadors to Hollywood” at the start of this year. Then, in late September, the world’s most powerful movie fan announced he would impose a 100 per cent tariff on any US film made overseas. Which will have a huge impact on the US filmmakers who’ve been using facilities in Australia – once Gibson’s home. The country that gave him an Order of Australia. When he still called Australia home, Mel learned the tricks of the trade that would win him a couple of Oscars and a string of the Australian counterparts I dubbed the Ozcars.
As you may recall, Mel has had a big battle with alcoholism. It got him in trouble with the cops, and led to drunken outbursts about “the Jews that run Hollywood” as he seemingly parroted the views of his father Hutton, a virulent anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.
Gibson Snr – who died in 2020, aged 101 – was an ultra-Catholic from a splinter group that would have regarded our climate change denying Cardinal Pell as a dangerous left-winger. He first came to public attention as a big winner on the US TV quiz show Jeopardy!, which kept his poverty-stricken family afloat.
As a devout Catholic, Hutton abhorred contraception and had 11 children. As a devout conspiracy theorist he repeatedly ridiculed the idea of the Final Solution, insisting that the missing millions of Jews had simply emigrated. He also refused to accept that the 9/11 attacks had anything to do with Islamic terrorists.
Ditto the Second Vatican Council. Marking the end of decent Catholicism, the Council was a plot somehow organised by the Freemasons and (drum roll) the Jews. We recently saw the same conspirators at work in the Conclave.
Hutton married twice – the second ending in something frowned upon by his faith. Divorce! But in all other regards he was more Catholic than any Pope. At least any modern pontiff.
When his dad bought him to Australia, Mel was a kid of 12 – and he enrolled as a student at our National Institute of Dramatic Art, playing Romeo to Judy Davis’s Juliet in one early production. Mel became a star by playing the lead role in George Miller’s brilliant Mad Max; his star status was confirmed in Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, which is when we first met.
About the same time I met his father – virtually, via bootleg recordings of sermons (sent to me anonymously) that I found far more terrifying than anything in Mad Max. Somehow the poor sound quality seemed to amplify and intensify the hatred in Hutton’s voice. His zealotry. His fanaticism. Back in the US, Mel bought his dad a church of his own.
Mel continued the family tradition – and made millions with his movie The Passion of the Christ, which was criticised as anti-Semitic. Although Mel said at the time “Anti-semitism is not only contrary to my personal beliefs, it is also contrary to the core message of my movie. The Passion is meant to inspire, not offend”.
I don’t think Mel deserves his AO. Or to be counted among the good and the great of the Australian film industry. But I do see why he makes a fine Trumpian ambassador, and deserves a big star on Hollywood Boulevard.
More Coverage
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout