march 24, 2003
Among the gaggle of Hollywood actors, some of whom turn up in diamond studded stilettos for Academy Awards ceremonies, there are those who try to set their moral standards on the rest of us plain plebes. Rubes like Chevy Chase drive a gas-guzzling SUV himself, but leads the charge against these so-called polluters of the freeways on televised crusades.
Laying their political opinions and distaste of the plain spoken George W. Bush on us are, among others, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Sarah Jessica Parker, Janeane Garofelo, and Cher.
Mel Gibson, who had the courage to pronounce "Feminists don’t like me, and I don’t like them. I don’t get their point," is a Tinseltown throwback.
In a day where mainline churches preach saving the environment rather than the Gospel, Gibson is devoutly religious and unabashedly so.
While others of his ilk live to outdo each other in better mansions and cocktail parties, Gibson is the person behind an 864-square-metre, Mission-style Catholic Church complex in funky Malibu, California, where the scent of incense will blend with marijuana.
A traditionalist Catholic, Gibson financed the building for about 70 fellow members of the so-called ultraconservative group Holy Family.
There will be no Marxist Jesuit influence in Mel’s church, where, among other things mass will be said in Latin.
The star of Braveheart and Mad Max is not afraid of being tagged "a square" by tragically hip colleagues. Religion, rather than sex and violence, seems to be the theme of his more recent movies. Last year he played a Catholic Colonel in the war drama We Were Soldiers.
At the moment, Gibson is directing a film that depicts the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus. All gripes from a perturbed Vatican have been ignored by the film’s director.
Vatican pooh-bahs would love this film star. One of his oft-repeated beliefs is that mankind was created for the purpose of the afterlife. "This life is just a testing ground. It’s not a popular view, I know. People will…say that I’m sort of a mindless robot who’s using religion as a crutch to get through life. Well, I’m not a mindless robot, but I am using (religion) as a crutch to get through life."
In a world with United Nation’s support of population control, Gibson maintains that "God is the only one who knows how many children we should have, and we should be ready to accept them." He and his wife have seven children.
Perhaps it is his time for contemplation he finds at his Montana farm that makes him an advocate of positive thinking.
Gibson believes in miracles, which he says have been a recurring theme of his life. "I remember being in a really horrible situation, and it looked like certain death for sure," he recalled. "I was driving across the country from Adelaide to Sydney, and it’s just a long flat road, you throw a brick on the accelerator and you go to sleep you know. I was used to doing about 95 all the way across and then you hit the Blue Mountains. You’ve got to slow down, because there are twists and turns. But if you go from 95 to 25 or 30, it seems like you’re crawling, and I got stuck behind this disgusting truck and he was belching his way up the hill.
"I was looking for a way to get past, but there were too many winding roads and it was going up and up in the mountains. Finally, I saw this straight stretch. It was about 400 yards of just straight before I hit another bend, so I thought okay, now is the time. I pulled out, jammed on the gas, and just went for it. There were signs all over the place saying be careful of soft edges and it was drizzling. The wheel hit a soft edge and I had sheer rock on one side of the car and I started going into the rock wall and the mudslide. The truck was racing along and on the other side was a sheer drop.
"To avoid going into the wall, I steered one way and I then steered back to the wall because the truck was going to get me, and the distance for the straight stretch was closing and another truck was coming the other way. I just kind of looked up and these two trucks were closing and I was out of control in the middle and the last thing I saw before I covered my up my head was this massive gum tree just sticking out of the lip of the cliff. It was going to hit right on me. I swear it was no more than 15 feet from where I closed my eyes and covered up my head. I let go of the steering wheel because the steering wasn’t doing me any good, it was out of control. I felt these big bumps and crunches and stuff. I lifted my head up and the front wheels were hanging over and were still spinning. The big gum tree was crushed up against one door and there was a sapling on the other door and they had caught me in the middle from going over the side. So, it was one of those ‘I wasn’t going to get out of there alive deals’, but I managed to not die. That was a miracle, you know. You can say, it was just dumb luck I suppose."
Like everyone else, Gibson has had his ups and downs.
He is often quoted as saying that "tough times make you stronger, something he still believes in. " It’s true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Look at the experiences that some people have been through. Horrendous experiences, and if they come out the other side, they are different, they’ve changed and in many ways, they’ve had to adapt in ways that most of us haven’t begun to comprehend about the nature of the human spirit and what you’re capable of enduring."
Not all of us can be stars of the silver screen. Gibson believes "You’re supposed to be where you end up somehow. I am a big believer in pre-ordination. I don’t think there’s a lot of happy coincidence. I think it appears to be that way and to us it is. But I don’t think we are calling the shots, you are going to end up where you’re going to end up."
While some Hollywood actors dispense their advice in a twinkle of diamonds, Mel Gibson is a rare Tinseltown gem.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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