Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Matthew Newton and Mel Gibson still have friends

You've got to feel sorry for Matthew Newton. He's clearly in an awful lot of turmoil, and living in a fishbowl has clearly exacerbated his problems. But he's done a helluva lot of damage, too. The bloke is trouble, let's face it.

If you had any sense at all you'd give him a very wide berth if he were to cross your path -- or even if you knew him already.  But what's surprising is that even though he's not as popular as he used to be, several people have been surprisingly supportive of him over recent months.

Lawyer Chris Murphy has been particularly loyal. He is now engaged in a full-on Twitter war with the actor's countless detractors. He's certainly been going well beyond the call of duty here. He seems genuinely fond of the bloke.

It's interesting what kind of motivations people have for such loyalty. Newton's fame must have something to do with it. And notoriety is another kind of fame, after all.

The potential for increased media exposure by association aside, a lot of people do like a bit of drama, too. Newton has certainly been supplying a lot of that lately.

The troubled actor's story has parallels with that of another famous Aussie who's clearly losing his marbles in the public eye: Mel Gibson.

His latest crazy outburst was caught on audiotape by the son of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Eszterhas has written an open letter to the star that contains some truly jaw-dropping allegations. If even a quarter of them are true then Gibson has totally lost the plot, theme and subtext!

Which begs the question: Why did Eszterhas hang around the guy and put up with all his ranting for so long? Of course he had professional reasons for this, since he was contracted to write a screenplay for him. But Eszterhas brought his family into Gibson's orbit as well. And he went for a whole two years before finally spitting the dummy.

Amazing what you can get away with if you're rich, powerful, famous and charismatic.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, I see what you mean about Mel's alleged statements. He's gone from Mad Max to just plain Mad.
    He thinks he can convert the Jews to Christianity with a movie? Why stop with the Jews? There's an awful lot of Buddhists running loose around the world. There might even be a few Druids lingering about as well.

    I can't honestly say I feel sorry for Matthew Newton. I don't think his parents did that great a job with him, but the guy is old enough surely to have learnt something from his past f-ups.

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  2. Yes, I can't pity Newton. I'm getting really sick of this constant "mental illness" excuse.

    I don't think seeing his behaviour in that way sheds any light on it. I reckon he keeps acting this way out of anger with both his parents because he feels they valued their fame more than him when he was growing up. And he seems to have particular issues with his old man, who continues to overshadow him. So he keeps doing these destructive things to embarrass them.

    It's classic Freudian stuff, really.

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