Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, The Today Show, and Victim-Blaming

If you have the stomach for it, you can visit Radar Online and listen to Mel Gibson hurling verbal abuse at Oksana Grigorieva, his former partner and mother of his eight-month-old daughter, such as "You look like a f*cking bitch in heat. And if you get raped by a pack of ni**ers it will be your fault. Alright? Because you provoked it." Gibson also tells Grigorieva that she "deserved" to be hit hard enough by him to break teeth, that she needs "a f*cking bat in the side of the head," and other suggestive death threats.

In response to this, Whoopi Goldberg on The View questioned Grigorieva's motives in releasing the taped phone conversations to the media, suggesting that she failed to protect herself and her daughter, and asserting, "If there's a beef, take it to the cops." Melissa McEwan of Shakesivlle points out that Grigorieva received a restraining order before the tapes went public, and even if she hadn't, when a domestic abuser is rich and powerful sometimes the police can be less than perfectly helpful, so calling media attention to the violence can assure quicker action on the victim's behalf. Yet all Goldberg's anger seems directed toward the potential for someone to expose an abuser out of revenge, rather than the fact that he beat the shit out of a woman.

Goldberg, who identifies herself as a friend of Gibson's, was also busy defending him as not racist because he's spent time with her, an African American woman, despite his repeated use of racial slurs ("raped by a pack of ni**ers"). She also is the one who defended Roman Polanski's assault of a minor as not "rape-rape," which reminds me that, when it comes to domestic violence and celebrities, it seems that you cannot be considered guilty (even if convicted, like Polanski, or caught on tape, like Gibson) if you make really good movies and have hung out with a bunch of other famous people.

Even The Today Show opted for the victim-blaming route, with their "Chief Medical Editor" accusing Grigorieva of provoking the taped verbal assault by "using a soft voice" and being passive aggressive. Dr. Nancy Snyderman further claims that Gibson was acting out of an uncontrollable rage, perpetuating the myth that a domestic abuser just can't help themselves.