Joe Roth Named Telecast Producer for 76th Academy Awards
Posted on 02/29/2004 10:10:05 AM PST by Brian Mosely
NO MEL GIBSON AT OSCARS
Sun Feb 29 2004 13:01:38 ET
A major no-show at tonight's Academy Awards in Hollywood will be Mel Gibson.
The Executive Producer of the program, Joe Roth asked the filmmaker of PASSION OF THE CHRIST to present an award, knowing it would create unforgettable sparks.
The LA TIMES reports that Gibson let the offer expire because, Roth says, he was afraid of being booed.
His representatives said Gibson was too busy to attend because it was the movie's opening weekend.
Developing...
Thanks for that info. Sean Astin was appointed by President Bush to a commsission on public service, so if he hated Bush, he wouldn't be picked for the commission, or serve on it. And Astin's been quoted in the past as calling himself a Republican. I think you're right, though, that he was walking on eggshells. I can't blame anybody in Hollywood to the right of Susan Sarandon for trying to keep their politics quiet -- as we've seen with Mel Gibson, Hollywood is perfectly willing to have their own little blacklists for people who don't think like them.
Does anyone else have an issue with how this sentence is constructed? Did the LA Times say that Mel was afraid of being booed or did Roth? Or was Roth quoting the Times?
Also, does anyone reeeeaallly think that Roth and the Awards staff wouldn't do anything they could to ask Mel again at least for the ratings they know they would get and even though the "deadline has expired?
Really. Mel Gibson is much bigger than Hollywood, it would be ridiculous for him to be there handing out awards to silly celebrities. Sort of like showing up on some celebrity game show.
It could be interpreted as a snub ---- but Gibson is too high up for them to think he's wasting his time snubbing them. No one in all of Hollywood comes close to Mel Gibson anymore.
I have better things to do too. (But then, I've never watched the Oscars...)
Then I stand corrected. I thought that he was one of those in the ensemble that had a few choice words to say about the Bush Administration's foreign policy.
It wouldn't have been just booing. I'm sure some people would have made plans to walk out en masse as soon as he took the stage (as happened with Elia Kazan). The cameras would have been told to follow the walkout. The implict message that would have gone out to the world is, "the people who know Gibson best don't want to have anything to do with him." He was smart to stay home (and as one poster earlier put it, "count his money.")
I wish I thought you were right. People may support Mel in their hearts but they aren't about to do it in public for the quite justified fear they'd never work again. Look how few actors spoke up on Mel's behalf--Chuck Norris, Robert Downey Jr. and there was one more whose name I forget. That's how scared people are. Mel is a well loved actor but nobody is going to support him on this, especially at the Oscars.
Because there is so much support for Gibson at Free Republic we like to think we're winning the culture war over "The Passion of the Christ." We're not. The people who rely on the mainstream media, which is to say most of the country, are relentelessly pushing the notion that Mel collaborated with Goebbels to make a Nazi splatter flic.
It would really be classy if Eastwood spoke up for Mel. But pessimist that I am I'm not holding my breath. My guess is that no one will have the courage to speak up on Me's behalf.
I wish that were true but so far to my knowledge only three Hollywood stars (Robert Doney Jr., Chuck Norris and forget the third) have spoken up on Gibson's behalf. If he appeared at the Oscars and people started booing, no one would defend Gibson. They'd be too afraid they'd never work again.
Most of the comments during the telecast were pretty tame. I was surprised at the way Billy Crystal went after Mel Gibson right off the bat. Judging by the audience's lukewarm reception to his "jokes," I'm not at all surprised he stopped making them after just a few barbs.
I was not at all surprised by Sean Penn's comment about WMDs. Nor was I surprised that the orchestra cut off the creator of the documentary "Two Soldiers" when he started making his very pro-military comments.
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