Trump taps Mel Gibson, actor-director with record of antisemitism, as ‘special ambassador’ to Hollywood
Gibson’s history includes a highly publicized drunken antisemitic rant in 2006
Mel Gibson wins the AACTA Award for Best Direction for Hacksaw Ridge in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 7, 2016. (Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images for AFI)
(JTA) — For years following his highly publicized antisemitic outbursts, Mel Gibson couldn’t find much work in Hollywood.
But now he’s back in the filmmaking capital — as Donald Trump’s “special ambassador.”
The president-elect announced Thursday he was appointing the actor-director, along with fellow conservative celebrities Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, to the newly created role of “Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.”
In his Truth Social post Trump provided few details of what such a role would entail, but hinted that Gibson and the others would push his ideas on the entertainment industry, and that he would lean on them for advice on the subject.
“They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!” Trump wrote days ahead of his inauguration. “These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”
Hollywood’s Golden Age featured prominent Jewish talent and studio executives. Gibson, meanwhile, has become better known in recent years for his antisemitism.
In 2006, arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, the “Braveheart” star shouted, “F—ing Jews,” adding, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” and asking his arresting officer if she was Jewish.
The incident came only two years after the initial release of “The Passion of the Christ,” a controversial biopic of Jesus that Jewish groups said dramatized antisemitic canards about Jews being responsible for Jesus’ death.
Gibson — whose father Hutton was a prominent Holocaust denier — later apologized for his drinking, but not for his remarks, leading many Jewish groups to condemn him and his career to briefly suffer.
His reputation took another hit a few years later when he made graphic and racist threats of domestic violence to his then-spouse. The actress Winona Ryder, who is Jewish, has also accused him of calling her an “oven dodger,” an allusion to the Holocaust.
But despite the setbacks, Gibson was never out of the game completely, and in recent years has reentered Hollywood with success. In 2016 his World War II drama “Hacksaw Ridge,” starring Jewish actor Andrew Garfield as a Christian conscientious objector, was nominated for six Oscars including best picture and best director for Gibson. He has said he plans to film a follow-up to “The Passion” next year.
Trump has sworn to curtail antisemitism during his second term in office. Himself a longtime fixture of show business, the president-elect has long exhibited a love-hate relationship with Hollywood. While he gained resurgent fame with his reality show “The Apprentice” in the 2000s, he frequently used his first term’s bully pulpit to attack celebrities who criticized him. And he had harsh words for the film industry after the 2019 South Korean thriller “Parasite” won best picture at the Oscars, the first non-English-language film to do so.
“And the winner is a movie from South Korea. What the hell was that all about?” he said at a rally shortly after the ceremony. “Can we get ‘Gone With the Wind’ back, please? ‘Sunset Boulevard’?”
In 2017, Gibson reportedly made donations to a Holocaust survivor organization. Last year he endorsed Trump in the presidential election, and last week his Malibu home burned down in the ongoing Los Angeles fires.
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