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So. Mel Gibson didn't have a thread yet. Fixed.
Posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqwj--wGEgY
Saying that really isn't any better than saying the other.
Amelie 2: The Gnome Is Sick Of This Bullshit
edit:
It is on this board.
Oh, please tell me there are a hundred more of these.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-13-worst-mel-gibson-rant-quotes-presented-by/
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlindProphet
I'm beginning to wonder where the lines are with her, since apparently spousal abuse and child-rape are contextually forgivable.
Thank you.
She also didn't defend his spousal abuse. She defended him as a racist. She said what he's done is "boneheaded" but that the Mel she knows isn't racist.
I'm sure it's been posted, but watch the clip again and listen to what she says. Don't hear what you want to hear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6KCYwcEzbE
Joy Behar's line about "In Wine the truth will come out" that she relies on is a bunch of bullshit.
fixt
Nobody really knows the conversations you've personally had where you spewed vile shit, because you're not a celebrity (I assume).
Celebrities are public by nature of being a celebrity. I don't agree with the school of thought that because a celebrity is a celebrity they give up all their rights to privacy; some (read: most) paparazzi are just awful, terrible, excessively invasive creatures. But when a celebrity does something obnoxious like this, I'm not going to cry for their lack of privacy either.
I don't think this means that everyone everywhere is going to be recorded all the time.
And really, what makes you uncomfortable about a woman recording conversations where she's being verbally abused to the degree Mel has verbally abused her? I applaud her, both for recording the conversations and for publicizing them. Also for keeping so calm while he was being as poisonous and vile as he was. If anyone spoke to me the way Mel spoke to her, well it wouldn't go the way their "conversations" went.
AKA, fourth tape released:
Burn
Obviously NSFW due to intense Mel.
Why the hell would you ever speak to someone like that? It's verbal/emotional abuse. It's seriously not cool.
I think she's trying to argue that she knows him better than people who have just seen his movies and heard the clips, which is true. Doesn't mean those people are going to be convinced on her say-so, though. I mean, they're saying he's a racist because he has clearly said racist things (racists are self-defined like that); she's saying he's not a racist because he's acted in a non-racist way while she's known him. So pretty much all that's been proven is that he says racist things on occasion.
Which, if sincere, pretty much defines him as a racist in my book. You don't have to be spouting racist drivel 24/7 to be a racist.
(racist)
We've all gotten mad and threatened to do bodily harm to others, specifically an intimate partner? We've all gotten mad and engaged in blaming other people for the hurt we are threatening to cause them?
Verbal abuse isn't abuse and apparently everyone does it yay
She doesn't seem to understand that someone can be nice to a famous person of color and still be a raging bigot.
Her blindness to the massive privilege her fame gives her is staggering.
I'm not sure sincerity even matters. I tend to feel that casual racism - like using the n-word as if it's nothing - is even worse, in a way, than pointed bigotry. It's pretty easy to dismiss people that are openly, obviously bigoted. It's people who just slip the word out there that carry and propagate the disease far longer.
Don't get me wrong, the obvious racists are terrible people. The crazies out there that actually, truly hate or fear those of a different color, rare, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or whatever else, are jackasses. But there's this undercurrent of racism that tends to go unmolested in society. I don't think it's acceptable to use the n-word. It doesn't matter if he's racist in his heart of hearts or not. It doesn't matter if he was drunk or sober. It doesn't matter if he was just in some kind of insane rage or not. Dropping the n-word in any context is terrible and we might as well consider those people racists, because they are the primary reason these slurs stay alive.
Well first off, she claims that she didn't publicize the tapes, and actually says that she thinks it is "terrible" that they have been leaked. I guess they have restraining orders against each other and publicizing them would be a violation. The police apparently don't have the tapes either, so they didn't do it. So... what, she's passing these recordings around to friends, hoping they won't release them? Right.
I'm just saying that I doubt this woman is the angel that she seems to be on the recordings. You think that all of their arguments went like that, with her speaking calmly while Mel sounds like he's foaming at the mouth? I think these tapes were deliberately taken out of context and recorded in a way that is most favorable to her, considering she has an upcoming domestic violence case against him. What Gibson said is terrible in any context, but do you really think she never consciously chose to sound restrained knowing that what she was saying would be used in court? Please. The only time she ever raises her voice to him is when she brings up the alleged violence that she is trying to prosecute him for; is that the only thing that really upsets her, or did she do that so she could later say "See? I was very upset by that incident." And I'm sure she was (who wouldn't be?), and if it's true he deserves to go to jail, but it comes across as manipulative.
I said something similar early in the thread when someone commented about her 'surprising calmness', and someone else replied with "You don't want to provoke someone who is already beating the shit out of you." Well, why would you keep hanging around someone who is beating the shit out of you in the first place? The woman's not insane, she obviously knows that violence crosses the line, ergo the split and domestic violence charges. Why didn't she report the incident immediately and then get away from him the first chance she got? Because she wanted to do her own reconnaissance so she could selectively record conversations. Even if she is 100% right, that's still not a very fair way to go about it.
And before someone accuses me of it, no I am not defending Mel Gibson. I've already said that I think he's a shitbag and probably deserves all of this. So please accuse me of something else, like hating women for example.
There are many many barriers to leaving an abusive relationship. It is not that easy to "just leave."
You are holding her to a standard that is not reasonable when you say recording him isn't "fair." Being verbally abusive and physically abusive to your intimate partner isn't "fair." Putting them in a situation where they have safety/economic/concerns about children when they think about leaving isn't "fair." None of this is fair in the first place. We don't know what he has said or done to her in the past. We don't know what she knows about whether or not raising her voice will make him react more violently or not.
Your first mistake is to assume you know more about the motivations of this woman and the level of risk she felt in the relationship than she did, and then assuming she could just leave.
Out of context? There is no context that would ever justify "I hope you get gang raped by a bunch of black people" or "I deserve to be blown before jacuzzi" or all the other crazy shit he said.
Come on. Even if she was being just as racist and violent as he was there would be no excuse for what he's said. The only difference would be that she'd be as big an asshole as him. There is no context that would make anything Mel has said or done here even remotely acceptable.
How about I just accuse you of not really comprehending how abuse begins and how it continues and of glossing over the complexity of getting out of an abusive relationship?
Dude, what? Mel Gibson is fucking crazy. What are you? Because what you're posting here is rock hard stupid.
Sometimes recorded statements are the only way to show people what goes on inside the home, too. Most abusers are very charismatic and well liked in the community outside the home and generally people don't want to believe they might say such horrible things.
you aren't doing it right then, apparently...
I never said it was wrong to record someone. I just said that the recordings were not fair to Gibson, which is true. And that's not a problem when you're using them as evidence in court, because a death threat is a death threat regardless of context. But when you release them to the public, especially when you aren't supposed to and have done your best to make sure it happens regardless, and you do so before the trial has taken place, it's not very cool.
Really, the claims I am making are not that controversial. The main point I'm trying to get across is that I don't think these recordings are typical of their arguments. Also Drez, I explicitly stated that I am not defending Gibson and that the context does not change what he said.
However:
You know what? I don't know what it is like to be in an abusive relationship, and so I will rescind that argument. It's true; I am willing to admit to being wrong on the internet! I still think my other claims are valid though.
So you agree that you have no idea what is "typical" of their arguments, right?
What are you looking at to show that she deliberately released these recordings to the public?
I know what you explicitly stated. I am not suggesting that you are defending Gibson. I just don't understand how you think these tapes are unfair to Gibson, or what evidence you have to suggest that these specific conversations are atypical, or why that last point even matters if it were true.
Let's say - hypothetically - Mel and Oksana have had 400 arguments in total. And only these 4 arguments devolved into the crazy, racist, violent rants we've now all been exposed to. That's 1% of all arguments. I'd still consider the impression these tapes leave on the public "fair." Even if you're only being a crazy, racist, violence-threatening asshole 1% of the time, it's unacceptable.
I don't think I've heard anyone say "oh dear Mel is like this all the time, fuck him." I really don't think anyone gives a shit if Mel is "okay" 99% of the time. The fact that he has it in at all to yell at someone in this manner - especially someone he was in a relationship with at the time - is enough.
It's not unfair at all.
No, I don't know what is typical of their arguments- no one does but them. But I know what a typical argument sounds like, and that's not it. Maybe it's true and she was calm and nice all the time and Mel just flies off the handle with no corresponding escalation on her part, but as I explained before, I doubt it.
As for the recordings, she is obviously the original source for them, and she knew last month that she was not allowed to release them publicly. So she is either very naive and gave them (or copies of them) to her friends expecting them not to leak it, or she is not so naive and expected them to leak it. There is also the possibility that she leaked them herself, although I'd be surprised if she were as bold as that (if only because it makes it easier to trace back to her).
This is only sort of related, and is possibly bullshit since it is coming from Mel, but his defensive team is apparently claiming that she also attempted extortion using the tapes.
Edit: I guess I just don't really like either of these people after what I've read and heard from both. Obviously Gibson is much, much worse (I knew he was an asshole but holy shit), the whole thing just kind of stinks to me though.
You can't trust people without eyebrows.
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This is all only based off the calls though. I haven't really been following the "story" or whatever. Has he beaten her?
I don't understand this perspective at all.
Even if I were to believe that she somehow provoked Mel into excessive verbal violence and bigotry, Mel still has a personal obligation not to let it happen. I don't really care what she did, there is no "trap" for that, and Mel is fully to blame for what he said on those tapes.
Not that I believe in a Big Brother approach to society, but I'm not going to shed any tears for abusers having their verbal abuse aired for the rest of the world. Sure, nobody is perfect, but I think it's pretty cynical to suggest that nobody would like anyone else if everything was above the table.
Nobody is entitled to infinite privacy. Your privacy ends when you stop being private. If Mel wanted to be a racist violent asshole in the privacy of his own mind, then he has every right to be. People are free to think whatever thoughts they want to think. The moment he opened his mouth and exploded on her, though, his privacy is pretty much over. He's sharing his thoughts and I feel she is morally justified in sharing his abuse with whoever she wants.