Dragged Across Concrete: Dull or Deliberate?

Mel Gibson’s Dragged Across Concrete recently debuted at the Venice Film Festival and people are already criticizing it for its racism and homophobia. An article from The Daily Beast said Gibson has garnered love among the far right and achieve folk-hero status within that group. The movie depicts two detectives using excessive force on a hispanic prisoner in handcuffs, to the point where Gibson’s character presses his boot hard enough on the man’s neck to make a crack. A video was taken of them, which goes viral and the two are suspended six weeks without pay. Their police chief is sympathetic, comparing being called racist to being called a communist in the 1950s, painting the two police officers to be the victims. The film goes on to use subtle aspects like this to present off-putting ideology. Gibson’s character moves his family to a different neighborhood in fear his daughter may get raped by black bullies. A black man constantly gets his grammar corrected by white people. The two cops talk about not changing with the times and how gender lines are erased. The Daily Beast even quoted a line from the film, saying the objectionable nonsense goes all the way to, “A black woman who rails against her ‘cock-sucking faggot’ of a husband for leaving her for another man.”

An article from LifeZette said leftists are desperate to get offended by anything, especially in art in the modern world. With so many problems media literate people can detect in the film, do you think there’s a point to it all? Did Gibson intentionally do this or is he just appeasing his right-wing fans? I haven’t seen the film, but part of me wants to in order to get a greater understanding on whether it is an ingenious depiction of modern issues many remain too ignorant to grasp, or if its a dull, vexed regurgitation of violence, crime and racism that consumers aimlessly watch with nebulous minds.