Fox (n): carnivore of genus vulpes; crafty person; scavenger; (vb) to confuse; -ed (adj): to be drunk.
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Thursday 12 April 2012

Payback.

MEL Gibson's career didn't end when he played Dick van Dyke having an inappropriate relationship with a hand puppet.

It didn't end when he launched into drunken anti-Semitic rants at police officers, or when his ex claimed he had punched her in the face and caused her to flee with their baby daughter.

It didn't end with Mad Max 3, a film in Aramaic or a movie about Mayans running through trees while a woman was stuck in a hole in the ground, although plainly it should have.

It's also not going to end today, just because a scriptwriter wrote a really long letter detailing what appears to be Gibson's mental breakdown, love of violence and guns, Holocaust denial and deeply unpleasant snuff fantasies about raping and murdering his ex.

The scriptwriter in question, for the record, isn't that great an example of humanity himself. He's a bad writer with a strong line in dehumanising women both in film, print and his personal life. And he wrote Basic Instinct, which is basically a bad porno.

So he's got a cob on with Gibson, and Gibson says it's all lies and the script stank. Who knows? Who cares?

Unpleasant, vile men having an argument with each other about unpleasant, vile things leave me unmoved. Hollywood - and the rest of the planet - is filled with such people. They don't much care when someone acts up so long as they still make money.

Mad Max 2 is on telly this weekend, in fact. How many of us have a Lethal Weapon box set, watched Chicken Run, bought Pocahontas for the kids? I've even endured his Hamlet. Gibson earned millions because of us, and even though we didn't know what he was like then we do now and he's still earning them.

That's why he's still here. Seeing as we can't get rid, we should at least use him for something productive.

My shortlist of possible uses for a Mel Gibson:
* Birdscarer. If he likes standing outside in all weathers and screaming obscenities at the sky he may as well make himself useful.

* Neighbour revenge. If someone has been plagued, as I once was, by someone who insisted on playing Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On until I wanted to stop her heart entirely, we could rent Mel out at an hourly rate. He could be positioned close to party walls to unleash his rage, and we'd make a fortune.

* Guide at Auschwitz. A boggle-eyed lunatic walking around insisting everything you can see does not exist would be a marvellous educational tool and might even raise a smile. Failing that, he could be hired out for philosophers' parties.

* Peace bomb. Squeeze him into a missile tube and fire him at the Israel-Palestine border. Fuelled by whisky he would rant and rave about Nazis, women, Jews, Hungarians, rape, the Pope and whatever else popped into his head with the net effect that the Palestinians and Israelis might put their differences aside and forge a coalition just to shut him up.

* Cellmate for Abu Hamza.

* IT training aid. While geeks learn how to deal with tricky calls from workers anxious about lost data, Mel could scream abuse at them for practice. This application might also work for cub reporters, army recruits, and call centre staff.

* Government health campaign about the dangers of cocaine abuse.

* Companion for Samantha Brick. "I look so f*****g old! I look horrible! That f*****g whore is destroying me! She's taking my looks! I hate her! She's destroying my life!"

* Witness at the Leveson Inquiry, providing a perfect example of why celebrities whose personal lives are not the same as their public image should be investigated, exposed and ridiculed by the tabloid press.
Failing that, of course, we could throw away the DVDs, switch the channel and in every way possible make sure we never give that man any money ever again.

And that, Mr Gibson, is payback.

"Hello ma'am, I am calling about a special offer on a birdscarer... Hello? Hello?"