Common groundCommon ground

Bannon ‘wanted to make Nazi movie with Mel Gibson’

Trump’s top aide reportedly discussed documentary-style film on racial purity, contraception and Darwinism with actor-director

Steve Bannon at a meeting with advisers at Trump Tower, Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Steve Bannon at a meeting with advisers at Trump Tower, Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Senior White House strategist Stephen Bannon reportedly began work in 2005 on a movie that featured Nazi aspirations for racial purity, and sought backing from Mel Gibson.

An 11-page outline for the film that was never made, titled “The Singularity: Resistance Is Futile” was obtained by The Daily Beast according to a report Thursday. The website says that an alternate title being considered was “The Harvest of the Damned.”

Although the outline was never finished and it is unclear what its intended message was, the Daily Beast describes it as a “story in which mankind’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge and scientific advancement has led to horrific, fascist atrocities and forced sterilization, drawing a direct line between those atrocities and modern bio-technology.”

One two-minute section of the movie entitled “The Commercial Eugenics Civilization” was to be about “Blood purity and the Nazis — the perfectibility of life through a human-controlled elite race that will bring about a better world.”

Mel Gibson arrives ahead of the Australian premiere of Hacksaw Ridge at State Theatre on October 16, 2016 in Sydney, Australia.  (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images via JTA)
Mel Gibson arrives ahead of the Australian premiere of Hacksaw Ridge at State Theatre on October 16, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images via JTA)

Before joining Trump’s campaign last summer, Bannon ran Breitbart News, a platform for the “alt-right,” a loose-knit alliance that includes within it anti-Semites as well as right-wing Jews. Prior to entering the news world Bannon worked in Hollywood, making right-wing films such as “In the Face of Evil: Reagan’s War in Word and Deed.

His former writing partner and close friend, Julia Jones, confirmed to the Daily Beast that she had done research for a movie about eugenics. She also told the news outlet that Bannon claimed to have met with Gibson, telling her that the star known for his drunken anti-Semitic outburst would put up the money for the film.

Bannon made several right-wing documentaries in the 2000s.

Last week, the Washington Post reported on his role in a 2007 proposal for a documentary that was never made called “The Islamic States of America.” It would be comprised of interviews of people who, like Bannon, believe that the threat posed to the West is broader than Islamist extremist terrorists, embracing an array of Muslim advocacy groups.

In it, Bannon described the “American Jewish community” as among unwitting “enablers” of jihad.

The proposal also mentions “front groups and disingenuous Muslim Americans who preach reconciliation and dialogue in the open but, behind the scenes, advocate hatred and contempt for the West.”

Most Popular
read more: