Anti-Defamation League Fires Back at Gary Oldman: Apology Is Insufficient

“At this point, we are not satisfied with what we received,” the Jewish organization said in a statement

ADL calls Gary Oldman's apology "insufficient"
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Gary Oldman has said he is “deeply remorseful” for controversial comments in a recent Playboy interview that were deemed offensive by the Anti-Defamation League, but the Jewish rights organization isn’t buying it.

“We have just began a conversation with his managing producer.  At this point, we are not satisfied with what we received,” Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement to TheWrap. “His apology is insufficient and not satisfactory.”

Also read: Gary Oldman Denounced by Anti-Defamation League for Defending Mel Gibson in Playboy

The “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” star told Playboy he believed the backlash Mel Gibson received after making insensitive comments about Jews during a 2006 DUI was hypocritical.

“He got drunk and said a few things, but we’ve all said those things. We’re all f–king hypocrites. That’s what I think about it,” Oldman said. “The policeman who arrested him has never used the word n–ger or that f–king Jew? I’m being brutally honest here. It’s the hypocrisy of it that drives me crazy.”

Also read: Gary Oldman’s Manager Slams Media Backlash Over Playboy Interview

Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him — and doesn’t need to feed him anymore because he’s got enough dough,” Oldman added.

Former L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy James Mee, the policeman who arrested Gibson, was the first to respond to Oldman’s charge.

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“I’m Jewish and why would I say that to discredit my own religious makeup?” Mee said. “The N-word is a scary word.  I would never even dream of using it.  It sickens me that anyone would use that word.”

The ADL previously called Oldman’s remarks irresponsible, because they further negative stereotypes.

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“He should know better than to repeat and give credence to tired anti-Semitic tropes,” Foxman said in a statement earlier this week. “Mel Gibson‘s ostracization in Hollywood was not a matter of being ‘politically incorrect,’ as Mr. Oldman suggests, but of paying the consequences for outing himself as a bigot and a hater. It is disturbing that Mr. Oldman appears to have bought into Mr. Gibson’s warped and prejudiced world view.”

Goldman’s manager, Douglas Urbanski, defended his client’s comments, which he believes have been largely misunderstood and exaggerated by the media.

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“Gary does not blast ‘liberal Hollywood’ — the word liberal is not used by him, and I don’t think it appears in the story in question! Nor does Gary anyplace in the piece (or out of it) defend Mel Gibson or Alec Baldwin,” Urbanski said.

“If you read the Playboy piece correctly and entirely, and in context, it is the hypocrisy of political correctness that Gary is addressing, nothing else,” Urbanksi’s statement continued. “In this interview Gary is doing what many intelligent people do: he is illustrating the absurd by being absurd.”

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