Salon.com > Mel Gibson http://www.salon.com Mon, 20 May 2013 14:17:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Financial info of celebrities and government officials leaked online http://www.salon.com/2013/03/12/financial_info_of_celebrities_and_government_officials_leaked_online/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/12/financial_info_of_celebrities_and_government_officials_leaked_online/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:31:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13226409 LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities and celebrities were grappling with how to respond to a website that posted what appears to be private financial information about top government officials and stars such as Jay-Z and Mel Gibson.

The Justice Department said Monday the FBI was investigating how the Social Security number, address and a credit report of FBI Director Robert Mueller ended up on the site. The site also posted the same information about Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, and the department said it was investigating the matter.

In addition to Jay-Z and Gibson, other targeted stars included Beyonce, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. Info posted about Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not include credit reports but included addresses and other sensitive information.

Social Security numbers posted on Jay-Z, Gibson and others matched records in public databases.

The site, which bears an Internet suffix originally assigned to the Soviet Union, expanded throughout the day Monday to add entries on Britney Spears, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and others.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/12/financial_info_of_celebrities_and_government_officials_leaked_online/feed/ 1 Mel Gibson defended by gay adopted brother http://www.salon.com/2011/07/11/mel_gibson_gay_brother_defense/ http://www.salon.com/2011/07/11/mel_gibson_gay_brother_defense/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/07/11/mel_gibson_gay_brother_defense Mel Gibson may have permanently sundered his relationship with the American public after half a decade of bad publicity – including a famous anti-Semitic tirade after being pulled over for drunken driving in Malibu and the leaked audiotapes in which he threatened ex Oksana Grigorieva with physical violence (with some racial slurs thrown in for good measure)  -- but there is still at least one person in the world willing to defend the actor's honor. That would be Andrew Gibson, 43: Mel's gay adopted brother.

Andrew has kept a low media profile, but in an interview over the weekend with PerthNow (a subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corp.), the other Mr. Gibson stood up for his famous sibling: "He never meant to upset anyone. I have never once heard anything anti-gay come out of his mouth," Andrew told the paper. Which goes along with what that small contingent of Mel's supporters in Hollywood (among them Danny Glover and Jodie Foster) have been claiming ... that the actor is a loving, tolerant individual who sometimes says dumb things. Still, it's hard to believe this vocal minority's opinion when stacked up against the rest of the evidence of the "Lethal Weapon" star's behavior.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/07/11/mel_gibson_gay_brother_defense/feed/ 18 Jodie Foster distances herself from Mel Gibson http://www.salon.com/2011/05/06/jodie_foster_softens_on_mel_gibson/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/06/jodie_foster_softens_on_mel_gibson/#comments Fri, 06 May 2011 15:27:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/05/06/jodie_foster_softens_on_mel_gibson It's been a while since Jodie Foster has touched on the subject of Mel Gibson -- and in that time, it looks like she got herself a mini version of the ten-foot pole the rest of the industry has been using on him. On "Letterman" Thursday night, the actress/director, promoting her new movie "The Beaver," could not have been more uncomfortably restrained in her assessment of her leading man. Foster, who back in March was gushing, teary-eyed, to the Hollywood Reporter that "God, I love that man," still had kind words for the actor. She told Letterman, "He's very good in the movie; he's a very good friend," and didn't hesitate to declare, again, "He's wonderful in the movie."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/06/jodie_foster_softens_on_mel_gibson/feed/ 23 The role Mel Gibson was born to play http://www.salon.com/2011/05/04/beaver_2/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/04/beaver_2/#comments Wed, 04 May 2011 20:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/05/04/beaver Even before Mel Gibson's most recent set of personal and legal difficulties -- i.e., the "revelation" that he sometimes behaves like an unbelievable prick, and may be dangerously unstable -- "The Beaver" was always going to be a weird footnote to his career. But both within the universe of Hollywood and the universe of the film, there was a logic to it: Take an immensely gifted actor, once a dominant star but now viewed as a bigot and a wacko, and unleash him on a dark, ambitious script about a character suffering a schizophrenic breakdown. Add the fact that Gibson's director and co-star is perhaps the most respected woman in the film industry and roll the dice; if producer Steve Golin was imagining a possible upside of "Being John Malkovich" or "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" here, it's no wonder, since he helped make those movies too.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/04/beaver_2/feed/ 32 Mel Gibson says he was “betrayed” http://www.salon.com/2011/04/22/mel_gibson_interview_the_beaver/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/22/mel_gibson_interview_the_beaver/#comments Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:23:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/2011/04/22/mel_gibson_interview_the_beaver He's back. With his new movie, "The Beaver," just weeks away from release, Oscar-winning hothead and domestic abuser Mel Gibson is at last on the full career rehab track, granting Deadline his first interview since a series of explosively vitriolic, threatening conversations with his ex Oksana Grigorieva emerged a year ago. Though he's a long way from the sputtering loon of the tapes and says "of course" he regrets what he said on them, the real revelation of the interview is how easy it appears for Gibson to believe he's a victim too.

It would have been a challenge to promote a movie in which he stars without his doing any publicity for it, and Gibson appears to have chosen very carefully for his first foray back into the spotlight. Finally owning up to the veracity of the tapes he long refused to acknowledge, Gibson bravely dealt with journalist Allison Hope Weiner's hard-hitting questions like "Aren’t you going to be hurt if people judge you based on what they believe occurred here?" and her reassurances that director Todd Phillips' decision to ax his cameo in "The Hangover 2" "a very Hollywood hypocritical moment." It's the interview that reads like a colonoscopy!

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/22/mel_gibson_interview_the_beaver/feed/ 22 Why are Christian movies so awful? http://www.salon.com/2011/04/13/soul_surfer/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/13/soul_surfer/#comments Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:35:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/04/12/soul_surfer When a star teenage surfer named Bethany Hamilton lost her left arm in a 2003 shark attack, and then got back on her surfboard just three weeks later, you could hear another species of shark -- the ones from Hollywood, who turn dramatic real-life events into movies -- swimming to the scene. Not only did Hamilton's story have an attractive and charismatic central character, it also came with a moral message attached and (to think more cynically) a much-desired target demographic. Hamilton's family were evangelical Christians who understood what had happened to Bethany as a personal and providential test of faith, and also saw it as an opportunity to testify to the wider world.

The resulting film, "Soul Surfer," which stars AnnaSophia Robb as Hamilton and Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as her parents, took some interesting twists and turns on its way to the big screen. There was evidently disagreement between the Hamiltons and the film's producers along the way, over the question of how explicit to make the references to faith and the quotations from Scripture. (They're plenty explicit, if you ask me.) But success has a way of resolving all such disputes, and "Soul Surfer" opened last weekend on 2,214 screens with a $10.6 million gross, and the third-highest per-screen average of any film in wide release (after "Hop" and "Hanna").

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/13/soul_surfer/feed/ 165 Mel Gibson cops to domestic abuse http://www.salon.com/2011/03/10/mel_gibson_domestic_abuse_plea/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/10/mel_gibson_domestic_abuse_plea/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:25:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/2011/03/10/mel_gibson_domestic_abuse_plea You'll soon be free to officially refer to him as a domestic abuser. Mel Gibson, Oscar winner, Jew blamer and king of bad breakups, is set to plead no contest today to a misdemeanor count of domestic violence in Los Angeles court. It was a defensive move for the hotheaded former Sexiest Man Alive, currently embroiled in a child custody dispute with his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. He had been expected to be formally charged this week with misdemeanor battery against Grigorieva for a 2010 incident in which he allegedly punched her in the face during an argument. In court papers last year, Gibson insisted he only slapped Grigorieva "with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality" as she held their baby daughter, Lucia -- a slap that was apparently forceful enough to knock out her veneers. And in one of their infamous telephone conversations, Grigorieva says, "You were hitting a woman with a child in her hands ... Breaking her teeth, twice, in the face, what kind of man is that?" To which the gentleman alleged to be Gibson answers, "You fucking deserved it."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/10/mel_gibson_domestic_abuse_plea/feed/ 3 This Week in Crazy: Mel Gibson http://www.salon.com/2010/11/20/this_week_crazy_mel_gibson/ http://www.salon.com/2010/11/20/this_week_crazy_mel_gibson/#comments Sat, 20 Nov 2010 16:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/11/20/this_week_crazy_mel_gibson Ryan Reynolds, don't let this happen to you. As People magazine celebrates the 25th anniversary of its Sexiest Man Alive! (exclamation point required) issue this week, its first king of sexy, Mel Gibson, is still every inch the newsmaking superstar. It's just that these days, he's better known as that guy with the rage issues.

You know things are bad when an Oscar-winning actor and director's biggest release this year was the slew of epithet-laced telephone tirades purportedly aimed at his estranged girlfriend. And Gibson made headlines again this week when it was revealed that he admitted, in court documents, that he slapped Oksana Grigorieva hard enough to knock out her dental veneers during a vicious January argument. But it's OK because "I did not slap her hard, I was just trying to shock her so that she would stop screaming, continuing shaking Lucia back and forth." Oh, well, when you put it that way, Crazy Sauce.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/11/20/this_week_crazy_mel_gibson/feed/ 87 Mel Gibson slapped his girlfriend. Is it abuse? http://www.salon.com/2010/11/16/mel_gibson_admits_slapping/ http://www.salon.com/2010/11/16/mel_gibson_admits_slapping/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/11/16/mel_gibson_admits_slapping Mel Gibson would have it known he did not hit his girlfriend. He did not punch her while she was holding their baby daughter Lucia. He slapped her, OK? In court papers obtained Monday by TMZ, the 54-year-old actor, and occasionally erratic driver, details a heated January argument with his estranged girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva -- and unsurprisingly, it differs significantly from Grigorieva's version of events. But the guy Jodie Foster describes as "truly the most loved man in the film business" does cop to slapping Grigorieva "one time with an open hand in an attempt to bring her back to reality" during a fight while their 2-month-old daughter was in her arms. Grigorieva has alleged that Gibson broke her teeth, after photos of her with a chipped set of front choppers emerged. In his statement, Gibson claims "There was never any blood on Oksana and none of her teeth were 'broken,' although one of the false veneers from a tooth apparently did come off."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/11/16/mel_gibson_admits_slapping/feed/ 66 “The Hangover 2′s” Mel Gibson hypocrisy http://www.salon.com/2010/10/22/mel_gibson_mike_tyson_hangover_2/ http://www.salon.com/2010/10/22/mel_gibson_mike_tyson_hangover_2/#comments Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/10/22/mel_gibson_mike_tyson_hangover_2 The sun stopped in the sky Wednesday, the oceans rolled back, and an extraterrestrial starship the size of Australia hovered over the North Pole, transforming arctic wastelands into verdant pastures.

And in other miracle-related news, some people in Hollywood decided to stand on principle.

The issue was Mel Gibson, charismatic movie star, Oscar-winning filmmaker and drunken, bigoted, death-threat-issuing lout. Gibson was supposed to make a cameo in "The Hangover 2," the sequel to the 2009 hit "The Hangover," but was booted from the production, reportedly after cast members -- supposedly led by costar Zach Galifianakis -- told the film's director, Todd Phillips, that they were uncomfortable working with Gibson. The cast apparently was not uncomfortable appearing in the last "Hangover" opposite convicted rapist and onetime mugger Mike Tyson, who subsequently told ESPN radio that he did the cameo "for drug money."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/10/22/mel_gibson_mike_tyson_hangover_2/feed/ 158 Jodie Foster’s baffling Mel Gibson defense http://www.salon.com/2010/10/21/jodie_foster_no_role_model/ http://www.salon.com/2010/10/21/jodie_foster_no_role_model/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:22:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/10/21/jodie_foster_no_role_model The time has come to admit it -- Jodie Foster is not all that. Foster, beloved child actress turned two-time Academy Award winner, Yale magna cum laude, respected director and person who has lived in the public eye for 40 years without a nip slip, bar brawl or nutty Twitter outburst, seems in many ways the epitome of graceful modern womanhood. She is serious about her work, she is devoted to her children and she was honored Monday as one of Elle magazine's top women in Hollywood. And it was there that she spoke of "an amazing actor, an incredible friend, a loyal friend of mine for 18 years." She described him as "incredibly loved by everyone who ever comes into contact with him or works with him ... truly the most loved man in the film business, so, hopefully that stands for something."

She was talking about Mel Gibson. Say what?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/10/21/jodie_foster_no_role_model/feed/ 164 “Centurion”: Trapped in the Roman Empire’s Vietnam http://www.salon.com/2010/08/26/centurion/ http://www.salon.com/2010/08/26/centurion/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/08/25/centurion When was the first time an imperial power overreached itself and got mired in some remote and seemingly primitive backwater, confronted with a numerically and technologically inferior foe who could not be defeated? It's no good talking about Vietnam or Algeria or the American Revolution; even asking the question is like asking when was the first time some guy lied to his wife about where he'd been and what he'd been doing.

Something comparable probably happened to the Babylonians and the Assyrians and the Egyptians, but British writer-director Neil Marshall's intense period action flick "Centurion" captures the Roman Empire's second-century frontier, in what we'd now call Scotland, as a cautionary example. This is such a well-rehearsed kind of movie — the bloody, filthy, sword-and-sandal epic, customarily starring Russell Crowe or Mel Gibson or some other handsome dude with 'tude — that it's startling to discover how compelling a good example can still be. "Centurion" has its moments of manly cornpone camaraderie and certainly isn't blazingly original, but it offers riveting storytelling, gorgeous cinematography and scenery, loads of gore, and a politically complicated history lesson.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/08/26/centurion/feed/ 52 Mel Gibson’s ex-girlfriend accused of extortion http://www.salon.com/2010/07/21/mel_gibson_tape_extortion_charge/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/21/mel_gibson_tape_extortion_charge/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:22:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/trending/2010/07/21/mel_gibson_tape_extortion_charge The tale of the alleged Mel Gibson tapes has gotten more convoluted, if that were even possible, with the actor now accusing his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva with extortion. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Gibson's camp has a text message from Grigorieva that explains exactly why she leaked the horrifying conversations to Radar Online earlier this month, and it includes the words "you broke your agreement with me." 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/07/21/mel_gibson_tape_extortion_charge/feed/ 0 Monday link dump: K-Lo’s favorite feminist http://www.salon.com/2010/07/19/monday_link_dump_9/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/19/monday_link_dump_9/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/07/19/monday_link_dump
  • "Mel Gibson might be my favorite feminist." --Kathryn Jean Lopez, in 2003.
  • Glenn Beck cannot tell the difference between pants and a dress.
  • Soon, the Blue Dogs will disappear, forever. (Or just for a cycle or two.)
  • Did you know that we're fighting three wars? Maj. Gen. John M. Custer did!
  • Want to intern for Mayor Bloomberg? Go back in time and be born a Tisch.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/19/monday_link_dump_9/feed/ 1     This week in crazy: Whoopi Goldberg http://www.salon.com/2010/07/17/this_week_crazy_jake_whoopi_goldberg/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/17/this_week_crazy_jake_whoopi_goldberg/#comments Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/07/17/this_week_crazy_jake_whoopi_goldberg Did you hear that Mel Gibson's not a racist? He's just a "bonehead!"

    So reconsider those remarks attributed to him on those colorful tapes, the ones about "niggers" and "wetbacks." And while you're at it, think again about his comments, upon his 2006 DUI arrest, about the "Fucking Jews ... the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Or his rather casual reference, a few years back, to the Holocaust as "a numbers game." His diagnostician, Whoopi Goldberg, is here to explain it all away.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/17/this_week_crazy_jake_whoopi_goldberg/feed/ 128     Mel Gibson’s potty mouth: We do the math http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_by_the_numbers/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_by_the_numbers/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_by_the_numbers You can say many things about Mel Gibson: That he's a narcissist, that his career is doomed, that he's self-loathing and obsessive, that he's an anti-Semite or a racist or a domestic abuser. Also, that "The Beaver" is a really unfortunate title for his movie comeback. But we thought it was time to let Mel Gibson speak for himself.

    The world's worst phone conversationalist has yet to make a public statement -- honestly, what could he say? -- but since we have a full, 3700-word transcript of the five tapes released so far by Radar Online, we decided to run some numbers on a few choice words. If the language we use says something about us, what conclusions can we come to here? We leave that for you, dear reader.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_by_the_numbers/feed/ 3     Mel Gibson scandal: Ignoring domestic abuse http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/domestic_violence/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/domestic_violence/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:43:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2010/07/16/domestic_violence According to reports, Mel Gibson has a tendency to say racist things. First, there was the "Jews are responsible for all wars" incident and most recently he told his ex Oksana Grigorieva that if she went outside in a particular outfit he disapproved of she would be "raped by a pack of ni**ers." What has been overlooked in almost every single report of that incident is why Grigorieva was tape recording Gibson in the first place. She needed proof. Proof that Mel Gibson was abusive to her not only emotionally, but physically. She had already provided dental records in their custody fight to prove that he knocked her teeth out but Grigorieva still felt she needed more evidence to show the court that Gibson is much more than just politically incorrect, he's dangerous. Why is it that the detail about Gibson knocking Grigorieva's teeth out was literally a throwaway line at the very end of an article with a splashy headline detailing his latest racist diatribe? Why did it take so long for them to launch a formal investigation into his abuse?

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/domestic_violence/feed/ 53     Mel Gibson tapes: The complete transcript http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_complete_transcript/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_complete_transcript/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:34:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_complete_transcript Sure, you've heard about the Mel Gibson tapes. But have you actually experienced them in their entirety? Thursday afternoon, Radar Online released yet another expletive-strewn tirade, bringing the total to five. And for those who have only heard snippets of the jaw-dropping arguments -- or for those who might prefer to read the exchange rather than listen to the rage itself -- we offer the complete, unedited transcripts.

    Tape 1 , released July 12, 2010

    Mel: (mid sentence) Tell me that's a message or something. Because you're doing something. Trying to breast feed with, uh, fucking foreign bodies in you.

    Oksana: So…

    M: What, is that it?

    O: It has nothing to do with it.

    M: Oh, it had nothing to do with what, the fact that you had foreign bodies in there?

    O: Correct.

    M: Correct. OK good. So you're not lying to me about fake tits.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/mel_gibson_tapes_complete_transcript/feed/ 49     The psychology of Mel Gibson’s rage http://www.salon.com/2010/07/15/mind_of_mel_gibson_tapes/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/15/mind_of_mel_gibson_tapes/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:15:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/07/15/mind_of_mel_gibson_tapes "I feel like I'm listening to Satan," a coworker wrote me upon hearing the Mel Gibson tapes. Indeed, the anger in taped phone conversations between Gibson and his girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva (there are five, at last count) is volcanic: "I'll put you in a fucking rose garden, you cunt," he snarls. Or consider that poison gem: "You look like a fucking pig in heat. And if you get raped by a pack of niggers it'll be all your fault."

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/15/mind_of_mel_gibson_tapes/feed/ 88     Mel Gibson’s ugly tirades: It’s not wrong to laugh http://www.salon.com/2010/07/14/laughing_at_mel_gibson/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/14/laughing_at_mel_gibson/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2010/07/14/laughing_at_mel_gibson When RadarOnline began releasing the violent, racist, horrifying audio clips, purportedly of Mel Gibson raging at estranged girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, it was a harrowing glimpse into an apparently deeply disturbed mind. And as the shocking clips just kept coming, it also became a field day for jokesters.

    On Monday, comic Michael Ian Black took to Craig Ferguson's couch to pitch himself, "now that Mel has imploded," as the world's new favorite Australian. Letterman, meanwhile, offered Gibson's "Top Ten Excuses."  "Number one: Wanted to show the Jews I'm an equal opportunity offender." There was the inevitable YouTube "phone fight" pitting rage-a-holic Mel against anger poster-child Christian Bale, along with the so of-the-moment-it-hurts mashup featuring that seriously emo double rainbow guy.  And in a stroke of twisted genius, Buzzfeed went for the win with a choice collection of Gibson's most colorful quotes set in Hallmark card doodly fonts and accompanied by photos of adorable wide-eyed kittens. Why? Because "mentally deprived idiot" just doesn't seem so bad coming from a baby animal in a meadow. In my own home, Gibson's furious "You make me wanna smoke!" has quickly replaced BP CEO Tony Hayward's "I'd like my life back" as my new favorite expression of exasperation.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/14/laughing_at_mel_gibson/feed/ 44