Fans Separate Gibson the Man from “Apocalypto” the Film

Mel Gibson’s latest film, “Apocalypto,” is the first released since his anti-Semitic, drunken yammerings in California a few months ago. Those who wanted to punish the Aussie from Peekskill, New York, thought a boycott would work. Apparently, moviegoers were more discriminating. While they may not like Mel the Bigot, they made his movie number one in America.

If any film should have hit the ground with a big booming sound, this was it. Set in the Mayan empire and rendered in an obscure Mayan language, this wasn’t the kind of light-hearted Christmas movie the public has come to expect (insist upon?). Americans, as a rule, don’t like to read subtitles on the theory if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for everybody else. And it didn’t star Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz or Owen Wilson.

All the same, the movie pulled in an estimated $14.2 million in its first week-end. This isn’t a “Star Wars” number, or even a “Lethal Weapon” result, but it was good enough to be the top film out in the last week. The competition was Sony’s romance “The Holiday” directed by Nancy Meyers, which was second with $13.5 million. Starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jack Black and Jude Law, it's about “American and British women who swap homes for the holidays and find love in the process,” or so says the AP (sounds dire, really). “Blood Diamond” was third, a Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle that pulled in $8.5 million, and a comedy called “Unaccompanied Minors” which earned $6.2 million.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers, told the AP, “Whenever I tell people I saw the movie, they’d be like, ‘You saw it? How was it?’ There was a huge curiosity factor. A movie about Mayan civilization was never destined to be a big hit, let alone a No. 1 movie. But through Disney’s marketing, which highlights Mel Gibson — I believe they associated him very closely with the movie — I think that strategy paid off.”

Apparently, there’s no such thing as bad press. On the other hand, it could be that people understand that Mr. Gibson may be a bit of a jerk off the set, but when it comes to making movies, he is a rather dab hand. Being able to separate art from the artist is exceeding important. After all, one may like Van Gogh’s work but might not want to spend Christmas with him – after all, he attacked Paul Gauguin at Yuletide.

Mel Gibson remains a man with a bottle problem, and an anti-Semite to boot. He has a rather bizarre religious outlook, and he’s no doubt going to amuse gossip fans further in the future; that’s his style. That said, he’s a gifted film-maker, and at that level is where one should consider him.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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