QUOTE: "He got Abe Foxman to help sell the movie, and got the media to give him free coverage by saying something outrageous whenever the stories were beginning to die down."
RESPONSE: As someone who followed the controversy in real time, I can say with confidence that your accusation is completely false.
The first clue of Passion controversy was when Gibson went on the O'Reilly Factor from the set of The Passion to express displeasure that the NYT was interviewing his octogenarian father. Shortly thereafter, Rabbi Marvin Hier and the ADL accused the script of The Passion of being anti-Semitic. This was around March 2013, in the middle of production, almost a year before release. Team Gibson released a written statement around addressing the accusation from Foxman and Hier. Nothing Gibson said was outrageous or controversial. Gibson also did some innocuous print interviews with Zenit, a Catholic news agency, and EWTN televised interviews with Raymond Arroyo. These interviews, which were aimed at religious Catholic audiences, were not controversial. Mel Gibson has never been attributed as saying anything outrageous about Foxman or Hier. The only "outrageous" remark he made was the off the cuff remark he made about Frank Rich to Peter Boyer of the New Yorker, which obviously reflected genuine anger rather than a cynical attempt to stoke outrage. All the while, despite not having seen the film, Foxman, Hier, and Rich were frequently criticizing The Passion in the press. As Gibson has repeatedly pointed out, the controversy died way as soon as the film opened. He remained bitter over the experience, and cited it as one reason behind his anti-Semitic rant to the arresting cop in 2006.
Mel Gibson took the same approach with Joe Eszterhas: issuing a written statement and then going quiet. It shouldn't be a surprise that Gibson has a consistent PR approach: he's had the same publicist for over 20 years.
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Destinata (3402)
8 years ago
As someone who also followed the controversy in real time, Mel always turned up the heat whenever it looked like the free press was dying down. That the controversy died away as soon as the film opened isn't exactly true -- that's when all the critics weighed in, and they had plenty to say. Gibson didn't respond to them, as I recall, because that would have been giving them publicity. And since it earned a "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, discretion would seem to be the better part of valor. Just Googling the string "Passion of the Christ slow motion" will get you about 645,000 results, the first page of which did not seem overly enthusiastic over what the BBC described as "seemingly endless slow-motion." It wasn't a compliment.
Back at the time, countless people told me that Gibson "had to defend himself," and that was why he was always in the media responding to Abe Foxman. When Eszterhas tried to goad him into a similar ongoing fight, he would have none of it. Gibson defended himself when there was an advantage to it -- for him. He'd described the ongoing controversy surrounding TPOTC as the kind of "publicity money can't buy" when he discussed The Passion of the Christ with "The New Yorker" (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/980753/posts). He didn't want to give similar publicity to Eszterhas, so yes -- THEN he went quiet. And Eszterhas tried hard to get Gibson to respond to him. No dice. Why should he give him what he knew from experience was so valuable?
The people who read the Boyer article in the New Yorker will see whether his comment about Frank Rich is the only "outrageous" thing said in that article. (It wasn't.) I haven't the time or the interest anymore in looking up the countless articles where Gibson said something juicy to keep the pot boiling until the money rolled in. Quotes from "The New Yorker" article kept the ink flowing for some time. Him claiming the Holy Ghost was the real director and he was just "directing traffic" was another (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2004/02/28/passion-without-perspective/e89a88df-1dc1-4dae-bb9c-60fcfc9cb6ab/?utm_term=.496c65994607). It's a style of self-promotion that's been used before and since -- saying something outrageous to get people talking. Barnum probably didn't invent it. But people like Gibson and Trump have taken it to new heights.
For those who adore Gibson's film style, it's simply a matter of taste. I just finished watching Tim Burton's movie "Big Eyes," the story of the woman who painted all those children with the enormous eyes that were wildly popular in the '60's and early '70's. Andy Warhol said the paintings must be good -- "Anything that popular must be!" Gibson has his audience, too. I will leave it to film historians as to whether "seemingly endless slow-motion" and heads exploding puts him in the pantheon of movie greats, or simply gives him cult appeal.
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