Mel Gibson has delivered Part 2 of his theological works. His sequel to The Passion Of The Christ -- Gibson's hurling of anti-semitic epithets at the arresting officer in the filmmaker's DUI adventure -- can also be seen as merely the trailer for the main media event to come: The Apology. Unlike Part 1, promotion for The Passion Of The Apology will not be delivered by the media cartel's marketing departments, but by their so-called news departments through the mouths of pundits who are primarily noted for not knowing much of anything except how to act like noted authorities on TV.

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Will the rabbis Gibson's been a-courtin' lately accept his apology and adopt him as their prodigal goy who now will... what?... blow off his long devotion to his dad's medieval interpretation of the Jesus story and come home to Yahweh? Will they endorse his attempt to enlighten us with a TV miniseries on the Holocaust? Disney pulled the plug on the project after the tirade. Maybe now he can relate to the Jewish experience having recently been baptized in the Zyclon-B shower of public humiliation for his long held poisonous views on the Jewish Problem. Has anybody given much thought to what motivated this man to document the genocide of the alleged killers of his Lord? Y'know -- the guys with the big beaks who allegedly run the industry that pays for Mel's refreshments.

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The apology factor has become a featured plot device in the media's narrative of celebrity scandals in the same way that car chases, explosions, pratfalls and farts have become essential plot touchstones in Hollywood movies, employed to keep us riding safely between the white lines of the narrative highway and, mainly, to keep us buying overpriced popcorn. There was the big lead-up to Bill Clinton's apology for lying to the entire nation, including all his friends and relations, about "that woman." When it became obvious to everybody with a functioning brain that the Bush administration made catastrophic errors in every aspect of the Iraq war and in his non-dealing with Katrina -- there was an apology watch for weeks. Will he? Won't he? Did he actually? Nobody bothered to ask, "And so what if he does?" It's The Apology, stupid, that draws the advertising dollars.

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The problem with The Apology as media event and narrative device is that, regardless of its highly debatable relevance (aside from accepted social protocol), it's taken as the climax of the story and a signal that we can now move on to designing the graphics and soundtrack for the next national soap opera. Ok, Bush's homicidal arrogance and stupidity might have caused thousands of deaths and created a breeding ground for WWIII; but if he sincerely apologizes we can have some sort of closure and maybe vote for his guys again since, after all... they've said they're sorry.

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There are a variety of genres of apologies. There's the truly sincere plea for forgiveness for an acknowledged offense accompanied by real effort to find clarity within. Then there's the tossed off "All right, I'm sorry, ok?" intended to bring closure to the aggrieved party's complaining. What all versions of apology have in common is that they're comprised of a string of words that are easy to pronounce once we just hold our breath and jump in. It doesn't take much effort for a white politician to say "I'm sorry" for America's history of slavery that ended 140 years ago. The only burden is the expectation that any African American will be moved by it. I'm willing to accept that Gibson's impending apology may be of the sincere variety even though he'll be dragged to the occasion by the PR firm to which he will owe a fortune. The strictly bullshit variety of apology is offered regularly by our bold leaders in Washington DC and in every state house in the nation. It might be Dick Army apologizing for calling Barney Frank a fag or Trent Lott for publicly endorsing the racial visions of Strom Thurmond. They were truly sorry if anybody was offended by their saying, like Mel Gibson, exactly what they believed.

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Another professed man of god, preacher Jimmy Swaggart, squeezed out buckets of tears and prostrated himself at the feet of those he'd knowingly betrayed for years after the fire-and-brimstoned one was caught in a car with a prostitute. The coverage of the scandal ended with the climactic apology; and any further discussion of the predatory practices of punk-ass preachers was put to bed.

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Mel's dad Hutton Gibson, a member of a small ultra-conservative sect of Catholicism, is well known as a Holocaust denier. Before the release of The Passion Of The Christ Mel said in a Readers Digest interview, "My dad taught me my faith and I believe what he taught me. The man never lied to me in his life... Yes, of course. Atrocities happen. War is horrible. World War Two killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps."

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Mel Gibson chose to present (I assume while sober) the image of "The Jews" as a slovenly pack of bloodthirsty Messiah killers -- a belief that persists to this day despite the fact that Jesus was a jew -- as were his disciples and his followers -- and the only role jews ever played in crucifixions was to be the guys nailed to the crosses; only the Romans got to sling the hammer. And the Roman governors did not take orders from jews. Even the Vatican had the PR smarts to apologize for the Church's complicity in the Holocaust and for its history of self-serving jew-baiting and jew-slaughter that led to it. But Gibson's faith in that myth remained undeterred. If he's suddenly seen the light as a result of hearing his twisted bigotry fed back to him, that's a good thing. But nothing will alter the fact that under the influence of both his drugs of choice -- fundamentalist Catholicism and alcohol -- he expressed precisely what's inhabited the narrative of his philosophical life. What exactly does he want to apologize for having done? And which event will ultimately prove to be the most compelling -- the apology, the holding of those views or having used those views as a blunt instrument on a police officer's ears? If the rabbis who will choose to bask in the media rays get their personal apology, will they stamp "kosher" on his brow and endorse his Holocaust miniseries? If so, what will have been learned? After all, rabbis are just as prone to human fallibility as child molesting priests, fraudulent TV preachers and self-righteous celebrities. Accepting apologies as anything significant is a purely faith-based pursuit; and, at the end of the day, celebrity apologies serve no more purpose than as mainstream entertainment -- a public relations market-tested sequence of gestures devoid of context, consequence or, ultimately, meaning.

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By the way, if anybody's been offended by anything I've written here or in the past... I'm truly sorry.

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Polar Levine
For Yankin' The Food Chain on Polarity1.com

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