Don't Give Mel Gibson a Break: Understanding Responsibility

Ayanna'sGuyhto's article Give Mel Gibson a Break says that we should care that Mel Gibson ranted on Jews while getting arrested for DUI. She says in her takeaways that “John Rocker said more inflammatory things than Mel Gibson. But no one seems to care.” Ghuyto also doesn’t seem to understand why when a celebrity makes wrong comments that we seem to be in uproar. I beg to differ with these statements and others made in the article.

Mel Gibson’s statements caused uproar not simply because he’s a celebrity, but because his statements directly relate to his defenses on making The Passion Of The Christ.”Here we have an Oscar-winning director who has participated and made several awe-inspiring, hero-themed movies like Braveheart, playing the hero of a people who were done injustice. In The Patriot, he defended another group of people (this time farmers and colonists) who were done an injustice. In Galipoli he played a track runner that was recruited to enter World War I fighting for yet another group of people facing injustice. Mel Gibson’s movies and personal causes have been public almost since the beginning of his career. 

And then it’s questioned why saying things against the Jews were such a big deal?
Imagine yourself a school teacher. Imagine that you spend your life grading tests, teaching students right from wrong, you’ve won teacher of the year in your community, and you get a lot of fame and benefits from your skills. Suddenly you’re up for promotion to vice principal of your school once you pass your grad school exams. But for some reason you decide you want to take in a little cheat sheet- and you get caught. What’s the big deal? The big deal is that you aren’t just anyone else- you’re a teacher who’s stood up for the exact opposite of what you did. People are going to be way more disappointed in you than if you were a grocery store clerk and got caught cheating.