Posted in: HBO, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: Last Week Tonight, mel gibson, opinion

Last Week Tonight: Mel Gibson "Best Known for His Work in Screaming"

Last Week Tonight's John Oliver tackled the report that a Justice Department official was fired over Mel Gibson regaining his gun rights.

A quick history lesson for a minute before we dive into what HBO's Last Week Tonight and John Oliver have to do with all of this. Earlier this year, POtuS Donald Trump announced that Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone were going to serve as his "special ambassadors" to Hollywood. As we wrote at the time, we could see each of them handling their personal areas of expertise and addressing them within the entertainment industry. Voight could spearhead family-based initiatives to ensure that Hollywood portrays healthy, caring, and loving families. We could have Gibson heading outreach to women, law enforcement, and the Jewish community. And Stallone could… maybe just pop up every now and then to remind everyone that he really did win an Oscar for Rocky. Two months later, it seems that being a "special ambassador" has some perks we didn't know about – and neither did former Department of Justice pardon attorney Elizabeth G. Oyer.

Speaking with The New York Times, Oyer claimed that she was fired after refusing to move forward with a recommendation that Gibson's gun rights be restored. Though resistant to approving the move over Gibson's 2011 no-contest plead deal to a misdemeanor charge of battering his then-girlfriend, Oyer said she was told to do so because of Gibson's "personal relationship with President Trump." Well, that was one of those things that Oliver wasn't going to let slide by, taking on Gibson and the filmmaker's "questionable" family history during a segment. "It is frankly incredible she got fired because she didn't think Mel Gibson, best known for his work in screaming, should have guns," the Last Week Tonight host noted during a segment of his award-winning late-night show. "If you've forgotten the specifics of his various scandals, I recommend you check out his Wikipedia page."

From there, Oliver went directly at Gibson by noting the filmmaker's father's shady backstory – noting that a rotten apple doesn't fall far from a rotten tree. "I recommend you check out his Wikipedia page, and while you're there, check out his dad's. Because the opening paragraph alone is spectacular. 'Hutton Peter Gibson was an American conspiracy theorist, holocaust denier, writer on sedevacantism' — which is a belief that there hasn't been a valid pope since 1958 — 'a World War II veteran, the Jeopardy! grand champion for 1968 and the father of 11 children, one of whom is the actor and director Mel Gibson," Oliver said. "That is a fascinating man! Imagine having so many terrible views that producing Mel Gibson is not the worst thing about you."

Mel Gibson Has "Daddy" Issues Only Donald Trump Can Satisfy

If we were FOX "News'" Jesse Watters (a hypothetical that just cause us to throw up in our mouths a little), we would be getting a little worried. Just when the primetime talking head thought he had cornered the market on creepy men-related comments that say way more about him than anyone else (like his weird obsession about men's mouths and straws), Sean Hannity had "Hollywood Ambassador" Mel Gibson on his show back in January to passive-aggressively point blame and drop conspiracy innuendos. During his one-on-one with Hannity, Gibson made it clear that he's happy that Trump is back in office. Like, really happy. "I'm glad Trump's here at the moment. It's like daddy arrived and he's taking his belt off, you know? So, I think he'll get some results here quickly," Gibson shared, giving us the impression that he's really, really honored to be a fake ambassador. Ummm… okay. That's definitely – a fascinating choice of simile for Gibson to go with (and we're pretty sure that there are some Freud scholars out there who would have a field day with that "belt" line).

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