Talk:Mel Gibson/Archive 1

message: Do we really need a link to electmelgibson? What is the relevance of this? If he was running as a candidate then it would be relevant information, but that some people are running a petition to give to him to try to get him to run _if_ Schwarznegger declines to run again, seems irrelevant, and needlessly supportive of republican politics in California. Should it be removed? pmb
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Huh.
Hmmm.  Mel Gibson's nationality is an intersting one.  He did get his start in acting in Australia, and most of his extended family lives out here, but he sure speaks like a Yank and has probably spent the majority of his life in America by now - and there were those strange comments he made about Australia when he was promoting his movie "Conspiracy Theory".
At one stage I played hockey with some of his many nieces and nephews - most of them were quite nice kids.  Never really met Mel, but he did come to a trivia night I went to once and played on the team next to mine.  Surprise, surprise, he was one of the answers for a trivia questions :) --Robert Merkel
I gather he was born in the US and moved to Oz at 12, broke into movies, made the big-time with Mad Max (for which they dubbed an American actor's voice over his because of his Australian accent in the US released versions), and he then moved back to the States. Mind you, I don't even own a VCR, so you can see how closely I don't follow the movies! Tannin
I don't have the quotes on me unfortunately but Gibson comes across as an American who just spent some time in Australia. I still see the local paper (The Advertiser) saying "Australian actor Mel Gibson" which I find strange, as Mel has made a permanent transition to the states and seems to have few ties to Australia in 2004. I think the key is in the accent, he re-adopted an american accent something like 15 years ago, I think it's clear which national identity he identifies with. Diceman 19:11, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That crap is now 70% of the article.  Why don't you and your wife User:RK back off?  Two lines on the issue is enough.
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Minor point but if Mel was born in 56 and at age 12 move down under than  that would be 68. How could his father had won on Jeopardy in the 70s to move them to Oz Smith03 01:31, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

text: RK, this is about relevance, not hiding the truth. His father's opinions are largely irrelevant to this article. We  should mention them in passing, mention that he may also share them, and move on. -- Tarquin 14:21, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: This about Mel Gibson's own quotes, which are highly relevant. Even before the movie filmed he admitted that the purpose was to lay the blame the murder of God at the hands of those who were really guilty (i.e. the Jews); in recent days he said that the Jews would literally come to his home and kill him if he didn't cower to their demands. He also supports Holocaust denial very clearly, by dishonestly claiming his father's views are not Holocaust denial and not anti-Semitic. These are not the views of the father; the point is the views of Mel himself.  There is no difference between what is going on here and what went on with the Wagner article. His own views are being hiden because some people are too gutless too discuss racism.  RK 14:29, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: You are being ridiculous, RK. Gibson is an actor, is known as an actor and recognised largely as an actor. So the article's primary focus must be on that fact. His personal opinions are secondary. Yes they must be mentioned, but no encyclopædia article except a joke one should devote more than 20% of the text to a discourse on Gibson's personal views. Personally I think Gibson's views are nutty, bigoted and absurd. I understand your sensitivity over anti-semitism but you have to have to remember to contextualise, not propagandise, articles. Clumsy agendizing of articles undermines what you are trying to do. Instead of accurately enabling this article to cover everything in a balanced manner, your edits made it unreadable and as subtle as a brick, destroying its credibility and completely ruining any attempt to outline Gibson's views. Your OTT editing style has done this elsewhere and proved completely counterproductive. This isn't a 'lets expose anti-semitism' encyclopædia, it is an encyclopædia which covers everything, where relevant and in context. Please stop propagandising articles and start applying elementary standards of academic accuracy, relevance and context. And stop turning articles into 'lets expose anti-semitism' polemics when the anti-semitism is not the topic under discussion, merely a secondary topic among many and not the central issue. FearÉIREANN 19:05, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Early comments

message: I have heard that Mel Gibson is of Scottish descent (I'm pretty sure Gibson is a Scottish name). However, I have also heard that he is of Irish descent (which would make sense, with him being a Catholic and all). Does anyone have a link on this?
:btw: So then, it would also make sense if we said he was Italian or Hispanic. --johno95 18:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnicity 

message: I'm not so sure about this para:
Although at one point Gibson possessed an Australian accent that was so thick that his voice was dubbed in the US release of Mad Max (along with the rest of the cast), in the early 1990s he began to lose the accent after having lived in the United States for over a decade. He now has a fully American accent.
Not a big thing but I feel this para is slightly misleading. The voices were all overdubbed not for any clear or logical reason, the US distributers were probably just over cautious and trying to protect their financial investment. Fact that ALL the voices (including the non-Broad accented characters like Max's girlfriend) were dubbed gives it away. There's also the issue of the bizarre and exaggerated accents in the film as fitting its story and setting: these probably also encouraged the overdub. As an actor, Gibson's accent will shift from role to role anyway. That said, his "Max" accent is not broad Australian by any means, and in fact some slightly American pronunciations do seem to slip in on occasion.  Precinct13 20:49, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accent 

message: *1) Look, there's nothing POV about saying "He said it" instead of "He explained it". 
*2)"possible homosexual, complete with what is possibly a "boy-toy".  This is ridiculous. Herod being gay is a common stereotype/caricature of him; this is obviously what Gibson was going for. 
*3)"leading some to question labeling him as conservative. " to "leading many to question labeling him as conservative." Is this for real? Does anyone honestly think he isn't a conservative just because he's against the Iraqi war? "Some" is a better term than "many", as most people don't think he isn't a conservative.--DrBat 11:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Politics and Opinions 

message: What do people think about those two links? Personally I find them rather pointless, but they already have been removed and added a few times so.... Garion96 (talk) 16:29, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Satirical external links

message: Is Gibson a sedevacantist? savidan(talk) (e@) 11:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sedevacantism? 

message: *This is Gibson's exact quote, "I feel a strange kinship with Michael. They're trying to pit us against each other in the press, but it's a hologram. They really have got nothing to do with one another. It's just some kind of device, some left-right. He makes some salient points. There was some very expert, elliptical editing going on. However, what the hell are we doing in Iraq? No one can explain to me in a reasonable manner that I can accept why we're there, why we went there, and why we're still there." -- Judson 03:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  His praise of Michael Moore 

message: I have added Australian reared from just simply 'American'. He spend his teenage years down in Australia and did not return to live in America permanently until the 90's. If Nicole Kidman is not simly allowed to be known as Australian, then Mel can not simply be known as American.
:Well, he is an American by birth and a US citizen.
::He did not learn to act in America so is not an 'American actor". I think Australian reared should stay. It does not say that he is or isn't an American. But he was reared there and it does have the right to stay there.
Gibson only moved to America in 1968 to avoid the draft, he spent most of his childhood in the US. He's American.
Excuse me, but he did not move back to America after the war ended. The rest of his family still live there. And he only returned there to further his career.
:"Did not learn to act in America so is not an American actor"? By that logic, the many students from around the world that studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (including Donald Sutherland and Michael Moriarty) are now British actors simply because of where they "learned to act"? Therefore, the many students from around the world who come to America to study acting are now American actors, OK? He's both Australian and American, so he is an Australian actor as well as an American actor. Jeez, what a goddamn silly argument. It's for the best you guys didn't sign your names. MrBlondNYC 15:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Australian

message: The "Homophobia" section is far too long for the balance of the article. It needs to be cut down by about two thirds to stop this looking like the Mel Gibson profile from the "LGBT Cinema-goer's Handbook." Chicheley 16:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a stab at it.  Justforasecond 18:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I whole-heartedly agree.66.171.197.20 14:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: Apologies, I forgot to mention on the talk the last time I removed it. I removed the Jodie Foster reference. According to Jodie Foster, it's not 100 percent sure she's a lesbian. If so, it needs to be reliably sourced. Garion96 (talk) 19:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even for allegedly you need a source. Isn't there another example which can be used or just leave it without an example? See also Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons which, even though this article is about Mel Gibson not Jodie Foster, still counts. Garion96 (talk) 22:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

text: how's this:    Justforasecond 01:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi JFAS, you'd need a reliable, mainstream source for that, a newspaper article preferably, or something from a high(ish)-quality magazine. See WP:BLP. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jodie Foster