Mel Gibson’s New Crusade: A Troubling Return to Fetishized Religious Violence
In a move that feels less like a return to form and more like a doubled-down commitment to controversial narratives, Mel Gibson is currently developing a television series based on the Great Siege of Malta of 1565. For those hoping the polarizing director had moved past his obsession with martyrdom and holy war, this announcement serves as a stark disappointment. The project is set to focus on the historic defense where roughly 700 Christian Knights of St. John held off an Ottoman invasion force of 40,000—a classic “underdog” setup that Gibson is notorious for stripping of nuance in favor of heavy-handed spectacle.
Handing a story about a violent clash between Christendom and the Islamic world to a filmmaker with Gibson’s specific baggage seems not only tone-deaf but potentially incendiary. Given his history with films like The Passion of the Christ and Hacksaw Ridge, audiences should brace themselves for yet another exercise in gratuitous gore disguised as piety. There is a profound difference between historical accuracy and the fetishization of suffering, a line Gibson frequently blurs. By focusing on a narrative that pits a small band of “righteous” Christian defenders against a faceless, overwhelming “Islamist” horde, the project risks devolving into a binary, xenophobic fantasy rather than a complex historical drama.
In the current geopolitical climate, a series that frames religious warfare through Gibson’s notoriously unsubtle lens is the last thing television needs. Instead of exploring the intricate political maneuvers of the 16th-century Mediterranean, we are likely to receive a glorification of bloodshed, framing the conflict not as a tragedy of empire, but as a simplistic moral crusade. It is a tired, archaic approach to storytelling that prioritizes shock value and religious zealotry over the responsibilities of historical stewardship.
