gibsonchrist antistar

Music: Dangermouse & Sparklehorse: Dark Night of the Soul (2010)

As I was leaving the house to get a little exercise yesterday afternoon, I read an email message from a friend. Her parting query was, "where will the Mel Gibson outburst fit into your ongoing project on publicity, affect, and recorded voice/tone?" It was a haunting question and I thought about it for the rest of the evening; I am a bit stumped. I've been arguing as of late that emotive or affective speech, when used skillfully, is eloquent, and that it is governed by the norm of "uncontrolled speech"---speech that is transgressive and violates commonly perceived boundaries. Gibson's speech in these tapes is certainly transgressive and (seemingly) uncontrolled, so to say that it is doing the work of governance is an understatement.

I daresay his speech on these tapes best captures what we mean by "evil." Listening to Gibson's hyperventilating rage, I was reminded at times of Legion's voice in the film The Exorcist.

If the tapes are authenticated (which is only a matter of days), there are only two ways this can go. The Hollywood way is self-disappearance.

Initially upon hearing the tapes, I was caught up in---as is everyone else---the content of Gibson's rants. I've tried to listen to the four tapes that have been released to date, but confess I'm having a hard time making it through them. What he is saying is painfully difficult to listen to, but when compared to Gibson's films, the tapes are also fascinating---if not something of an unintended DVD "director's commentary." I want to say a little about the content, and then address the question of tone and sound, because I think the latter contribute the overall creepiness in a significant way.

I think the lingering doubt as to whether or not Gibson is actually the person screaming on the phone can be put to rest. It certainly sounds like his distinctive voice. Voices are like fingerprints: no two sound alike. Those who do vocal impressions are funny because they come awfully close, and it's that uncanny closeness of sound---of "the grain"---that amuses. But, we make mental images of sounds in ways similar to the mental images of sights---so both can be fooled.

We can be certain the voice is Gibson's because of what he says (semantics) and how he says it (vocalics).

The man has a history of saying hateful things, anti-Semitic, racist, and homophobic. Misogyny has the same affective character as these other forms of hate because structurally they are the same: by rejecting or denigrating a "not-me," I build myself up. In short, we know this is Gibson because hating on a woman is consistent with his documented hatred of Jews, African Americans, and gay men.

Further, the U.S. public has "heard' Gibson say these things about women before---just not directly. If we can see his self-financed films as tracking, at some level, his desire, then you can literally observe everything he says about and to his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva in the film The Passion of the Christ. Women in this film are either virgins or whores, and there is no in-between. Well, there is one in-between (s/he is Satan). The virtuous role for women defined by Gibson in his films is "helpmate." Women are to serve and nurture their men, as they are to be extensions of them (in a certain "biblical" sense, McRib and all). To the degree women exhibit autonomy, they are disobedient and deserving of punishment.

Of course, in the recorded rants to Grigorieva, Gibson insists that she is a "pain in the ass" (Gibson's on record as being obsessed by anality) and that her role is to please and serve him. That she exhibits autonomy---and even more impressive, that she stays calm and collected as he rants away---only makes him even more insane. It is when Grigorieva calmly asserts that Gibson is unstable, in need of medication, or is only interested in venting, not talking, that he counters with the demand that she should perform fellatio (an image fraught with gender power relation if there ever was).

If you listen to all the tapes, he is very well aware of what he is saying and doing, and he is enjoying it. It is very much "all about him." So, too, is the collected Grigorieva enjoying it (she knows she's recording this stuff on tape, after all). She doesn't hang-up, as most of us would do. Instead, she patiently listens, then interjects calmly, as if to goad him on, searching for the next thing to say that is the most offensive (the final stop, for Gibson, is the "c-" and "n-" words). By releasing these tapes, Grigorieva has effectively enabled Gibson to destroy his career.

That said, what abides the disturbing nature of what Gibson is saying is the painful ways in which he is saying it. As I was writing this blog, Shaun shared a link to a Salon.com story in which an anger management specialist observes Gibson's panting is characteristic of a panic attack, the most common symptoms being chest pain and shortness of breath. The gulps for air followed by peals of rage are an interesting counterpoint to the semantic meaning of what he's saying. So, for example, when he screams, "you can just f----n' smile, and blow me! Because I deserve it!" Gibson is forcing air out of his windpipe so fast it's almost tearing into his flesh. The phone receiver speaker cannot adequately handle the range of pitch and volume of his voice, so the sound breaks-up and is distorted. In limited doses, such enraged speech is terrifying, almost supernatural. However, the shear quantity of Gibson's rage, and the body encoded in voice, soon sounds like profound fear and desperation. When he says, repeatedly, "you f---g c---t," it feels like "don't leave me!"

From wider perspective, of course, this public release of uncontrolled speech is doing the cultural labor of self-discipline and surveillance: watch what you say, folks, or it could wind up on the Internet. (Remember kids, Facebook---just like cell phone calls---is forever!)

There is also a way in which Gibson's over-the-top, no holes barred reservoir of profane invention not-so-subtly reminds us that, as human beings, we are all capable of becoming unhinged and enjoying it. By enjoyment, of course, I refer to the conception of "hurting so good," of jouissance and the ways in which various forms of violence, verbal and otherwise, court that kind of translinguistic ecstasy. Gibson's rapturous screams keep reaching for the outer-limits of offense, as if a litany of murderous effing c-words will catapult him into a realm of sublime transcendence (hence, I think the best term here is "evil"). These enraged sounds are homologous the grandiloquent bloody flesh-blossoms of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ. Remember: there are two ways this can go, both destructive. In this respect, I think Gibson's rant shares something in common, at the structural-affective level, with the Tea Party movement: a will to destruction.