Mel Gibson: Visionary Director or Pornographic Violence Monger?

I was listening to Morning Edition on my way to work today and caught Kenneth Turan's review of Gibson's new movie "Apocolypto." To summarize, he concluded that the message Gibson wants to send to all of us is that, if we aren't careful, our civilization could go right down the tubes, just like the Mayans' did, due to moral turpitude. However, Turan believes that rather than being part of the solution, Gibson is part of the problem, by producing movies with such expansive, overpowering and lush images of violence. He believes that Gibson is abetting the rot of our civilization from within, which he is ostensibly warning us about in this movie.

Turan's review got me to thinking about why I'm currently pissed off at Gibson. It started with the Passion of the Christ. I was very angry at him for making that movie, but I could never pinpoint why, other than this: I understand that Christ suffered on the cross; I don't need to see it in full technicolor with digital accuracy in order to get the point. But even after expressing this thought, I still felt huffy about that movie. Now I know why.

If you look at the scope of this man's career, nearly all of his movies are ripe with violence, excepting only "What Women Want." There may be more films that aren't violent, but I can't be bothered to seek them out right now, I'm too mad. When he made his first big move to director with Braveheart, he was hailed as a new visionary who approached historical battles with heart-stopping accuracy. Braveheart was a decent movie, and I tolerated the violence in it because I love freedom. However, when the Patriot came out, it was just as violent, yet not so good on the history. Not so good on the plot, either, because, I could never sit through it in its entirity. Then came The Passion of the Christ. And he lost me.

It is my theory that this man has a hard-on for violence and he's just looking for a historical background to set it in to give it legitimacy. The drawn-out eviscerations, the tortures, the stabbing, the primative open-heart surgery. Do we really need to see all this to appreciate the culture and heritage of the time? And while we are on historical accuracy, who died and made Mel Gibson Herotodus? How the hell does he know what life was really like back then? He doesn't. Nobody without a time machine does. He's sold us all on how he "researches" the cultures and works toward the most accurate depiction of life in the olden days. However, his "historically accurate" epic motion pictures are simply million dollar playgrounds available for him to indulge in his violence fetish. He's not adding anything of substance to the conversation of the rise and fall of civilizations; he is only adding garbage to the landfill of smut and evil that threatens to spill over us all.

So do me a favor, please: Save civilization; don't go see this movie.