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Winona Ryder accuses Mel Gibson of making anti-semitic and homophobic remarks


https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-winona-ryder-mel-gibson-20200623-dzogjdtwdzhubdrdhum2im3w2q-story.html

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Too easy to say those things now. I sincerely doubt Gibson would have had a career in Hollywood if he made jokes like that.

Miss Winona's also forgetting that she's a convicted criminal herself.

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Mel Gibson has done more shit than Winona Ryder.

I'm not giving Mel Gibson any excuse but I think in his day a lot of people openly said stuff like that, don't think they thought anything of it, if you which a 80's movie like Lethal Weapon they used to talk shit about blacks or gays, times have changed, this kind of talk in the 21st Century has stopped being acceptable.

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times have changed, this kind of talk in the 21st Century has stopped being acceptable.

To whom?

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Now days people are more political correct and Australia was known for being racist.

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What's Australia have to do with anything?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Australia

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I can only repeat, What's Australia got to do with it? Are you Australian?

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Mel Gibson grow up in Australia from the age of 12, so that's probably where his bigotry comes from.

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Frankly, you sound a bit bigoted against Australians. I know a couple of Aussies, and I've never found them to be bigoted or racist or whatever.

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And this makes you very knowledgeable on this subject. Brava.

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from my travels i found them to be very racist by today's standards. in a good way tho they are very funny about it at least

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Mel Gibson's dad is a bigot, and particularly hates Jews and is a Holocaust denier. THAT'S where Mel got it from. It tended to come out more when he was drunk.

Sadly, given all of today's antisemitism, it looks like Mel was just ahead of his time.

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You mean diversity induced between group conflict in Australia?

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Ryder got 3 years probation, community service and a large fine for theft, shoplifting and vandalism. Gibson has been arrested twice for driving under the influence. Is that really "more shit"?

Maybe he would've gotten away with talk like that about black people and women. But there are a lot of Jewish and gay folks in Hollywood, I don't think they would very much appreciate him talking like that. Just see how his career went downhill after The Passion of the Christ and that altercation during his arrest.



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Driving under the influence could certainly cause more lasting damage, such as injury and death.

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But has he done "more shit"?

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Lethal Weapon 2 the racists were the bad guys. There was a whole scene where Murtagh went to the South African consul building to apply for migration there to cause a diversion.

The South African desk clerk questions him applying, why?

>Because you are Blick

Then we are supposed to laugh, like look at those racists and look how great 'murica is. Look how evolved we are here.

Meanwhile 2020 black dudes are getting choked out by cops for nothing and racist people are going nuts because someone has a black lives matter sticker on their car.

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It's not the first time she has spoken of the encounter. She also mentioned it in a GQ interview in 2010.

I completely believe that Ryder is telling the truth, but I don't think this means Gibson should be "cancelled". Ryder's statement suggests neither does she:

"I believe in redemption and forgiveness and hope that Mr. Gibson has found a healthy way to deal with his demons, but I am not one of them. Around 1996, my friend Kevyn Aucoin and I were on the receiving end of his hateful words. It is a painful and vivid memory for me. Only by accepting responsibility for our behavior in this life, can we make amends and truly respect each other, and I wish him well on this lifelong journey.”

Seriously, is there a single living person who isn't aware that Gibbo can be a bit of a dick? I choose not to concern myself with his private life or personal attitudes and enjoy him for the charismatic movie star and talented film maker he is.

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Ryder has also said that she thinks she's married to Keanu Reeves. I take everything she says with a grain of salt. Even if some kind of comment was made by Gibson, I think it's very likely she's exaggerating or that it's just hearsay.

I absolutely believe Gibson is a dick and I don't even enjoy him much as an actor. At the same time I also believe that Ryder has a lot of issues of her own. We've been hearing a lot about this has-been lately.

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I don't know. I like them both.

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Not a fan of either, although I've probably enjoyed Ryder's movies more. But considering her own past transgressions and her sermon about forgiveness and redemption, it's hypocritical of her to still bring this up 25 years later. Seems like the lady wants to jump on the bandwagon and chose an easy target to do so.

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Yeah, maybe. It's not as if she retold the story unprompted though, she was asked by a reporter if she had ever experienced antisemitism in Hollywood and she mentioned something she had already discussed a decade prior. It's a bit different to the current tactic of getting on social media to slam someone you have a beef with, which to me would be more opportunistic than answering an interview question honestly.

Not sure if I'm down with equating shoplifting to hate speech either, but I understand neither of them are angels. I guess at the end of the day all this means is we won't be seeing Mel and Winona starring in a film together. Which is a shame when you think about it, I would definitely pay to see that movie.

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Meh, I wouldn't call two bad jokes made under the influence at some party "hate speech". It's not a criminal offence, as opposed to shoplifting and vandalism.

One can always choose to avoid answering such questions. No doubt she expected the question, there usually is some kind of agreement between the reporter and the celebrity being interviewed. And she's been making similar comments recently.

20 Years ago people thought it would be a good idea to put Winona and Richard Gere together in a movie, so I'm not so sure...😬

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Sure, if that's the only time Mel had slipped up. There was the whole phone call to his partner where he screamed that he hopes she is "raped by a pack of n*ggers", the anti-Jewish slurs to his arresting officers, his many disparaging remarks about gays... it's quite a pattern of behaviour.

You're right though, Winona could have left that story in the past. I do believe she is within her rights to talk about it, but in the end it doesn't really achieve much other than clearly enraging Gibson.

Oh well, it'll all blow over in a few days once there is another outrageous celebrity statement or feud to draw focus.

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Gibson has a serious drinking problem. Still, those incidents were not criminal and between him and the people he offended. Hate speech is something else. I think him drinking and driving is a much more serious offence.

No doubt it will blow over, but the next time might be another comment from Winona. It's just another way for has-beens to get attention. Maybe Mel can save his career by claiming Kevin Spacey touched his leg without asking.🤷‍♀️

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Yes. Who cares what that convicted thief has to say about Mel Gibson?

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Who cares what a convicted thief has to say against a liar and serial philanderer.

Fixed it for you.

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If you're one of the top box office draws -- which he was, back then -- you can get by with murder. Besides, look at how much antisemitism was lying just below the surface today. Getting by with it might have been easier than we thought.

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No, today the climate has changed. It was different only a few years back, as evidenced by Hollywood's reaction to Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ. That overblown nonsense pretty much started his downfall.

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That overblown nonsense made his ex-wife one very happy multimillionaire and more than made up for all the years of his cheating on her. And it started a burgeoning industry of selling schlock to poorly-taught Christians and mere church-goers.

His downfall was years of drinking, smoking, and skirt-chasing, a self-destructive lifestyle that was bound to be his undoing one day. It also, with the passage of time, helped destroy his once stunning good looks until he ran into the same problem that, well, Robert Redford did. Both Redford and Gibson are better actors than anyone gives them credit for, but no one wants to look at what their faces have become.

Gibson could have been a great director, but he was too into gore. He couldn't pull off directing something like Quiz Show. It's too nuanced, and Gibson has to get out a sledge hammer and beat you over the head. That's a rabid, but niche audience. And he'll never have another Passion of the Christ. He won't be able to convince people that the Holy Spirit was the real director of anything he does from here on out. Not anyone who reads the Bible, anyway. They'll notice way too much stuff in there against what Gibson's done all his life.

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Overblown nonsense was the reaction to his movie. He was immediately accused of antisemitism.

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It wasn't antisemitic -- it was just flat-out unbiblical. All other criticisms follow from that. It wasn't taken from the Bible as Gibson initially claimed. He eventually admitted it was taken from something written by a nun named Sr. Anne Catherine Emmerich, "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ." Every time it varied from the strict biblical account, it was straight Anne Catherine Emmerich.

Emmerich was the antisemite.

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"It wasn't antisemitic"

I'm not saying that, it was the criticism back then. And it stayed with him. For those people his drunken tirade was pretty much a confirmation he was an antisemite.

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You don't know me, so you don't know I was all over this like white on rice back in the day. His drunken rant came first, this came afterward. This wasn't what gave him the antisemite label. It was his screaming at that cop that Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world, then asking him, "Are you Jewish?" After that, if he said something -- or was reputed to have said something -- antisemitic, many people just said, "Fits."

I used to keep up on Gibson. Last I heard, he was going to make a sequel to The Passion of the Christ. That must have gone with the wind, because I don't hear any more about it, and Caveziel isn't getting any younger.

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No, the rant happened in 2006, the movie was from 2004.

I was very much around in those days, so I can rely on my own memories. But you can just check out the "Controversies" section on Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_the_Christ

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I'm an idiot. The rant referred to is when he got pulled over by the cop. The "this" that I was referring to was calling Winona Ryder an "oven dodger." (Not that it's much of an excuse, but I have fibro fog.) With Mel, there's just so many this's and that's. As I said, Anne Catherine Emmerich was the antisemite behind the movie. Mel just made the movie, with a few exceptions, according to her pattern.

Of course, Gibson was faithful to Emmerich, but he chose Emmerich for a reason.

Wait -- Gibson barred Jews as much as possible from his "pre-screenings" which were really promotions. He teased whether he was going to put the "blood libel" line in or not. It's all coming back to me now. He behaved badly before the movie even came out. So you're right. The movie started the antisemitic reputation. The rant clinched it. The story about Ryder being an "oven dodger" just had people thinking, "But of course."

Then again, a lot of people said Ryder was lying.

I think the rep must still be hanging around Gibson's neck. He's quiet as a mouse about what's going on in America's streets, campuses, and in Gaza.

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It was at a party. I've been to parties with Jewish people who made self-derogatory and very Anti-Semitic jokes as well being on the receiving end of Jew Jokes like someone spilling a bunch of coins on the floor to see their reactions.

If Mel had done this outside of a party setting and not under the influence then I'd probably feel differently, but it was a party where he and probably herself was pretty coked up.

Also, why didn't she name the Jewish movie exec who said she too pretty and at the same time "too Jewish looking" to play a WASPy heroine.

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Agree. Party is where people make fun of each other. I guess a proper response to his "oven" joke is “You are getting too wasted to dodge the bullet from the Squads."

BTW, Winona Ryder is not Jewish. (source: http://www.isjewish.com/winona_ryder/)

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Ryder is just desperately trying to make herself relevant again. Please.

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Keep in mind that Mel Gibson although born in America grew up in Sydney, Australia from the age of 12 in 1968. Sydney is notorious for it's abrasive and hard boiled sense of humour and those were the days before political correctness. It can be quite a shock to the system for people who are not used to it.


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There were curtain things they could get away with saying. Now in the 21st Century we are sort of getting better with each other.

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Lmao you say that while the US is burning down and more obsessed with race than ever.

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Written four years ago. Today, we may as well be living in Germany just before Hitler came into power.

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Fake news. I have a hard time believing anything anymore.

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I knew this ages ago. Obviously "cancel culture" is the in thing in 2020, so obviously the American media decides to bring it back this year and starts making a big deal about it. American media really are bottom feeders.

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yes this was brought up at least twice in the last 20 something years. love her and love mel gibson.

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