Vincent Gallo is Insane

I mean seriously, deliriously insane. He’s mad as a bloody hatter.

An internet site is offering controversial film maker Vincent Gallo's sperm for sale for $1 million. VGMerchandise.com - which calls itself "the official website for Vincent Gallo merchandise" - includes a detailed agreement whereby wannabe mothers can pay for Gallo to inseminate them by in vitro fertilization (IVF) or even naturally for an extra $500,000, a fee it alleges he will waive if he deems the woman attractive enough.

For those of you who don’t know who Vincent Gallo is, he’s the director of such films as Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny, the latter of which has the distinction of having been deemed by Roger Ebert less entertaining than a viewing of his colonoscopy, thus starting a feud which continued with Gallo calling Ebert a fat pig, and Ebert retorting, “It is true that I am fat, but one day I shall be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny." (After Gallo reworked the film for general release, Ebert revised his opinion, but had the final word: “[S]ince I made that statement I have lost 86 pounds and Gallo is indeed still the director of ‘The Brown Bunny.’”)

Anyway, of course you knew I had to go check out the actual listing, which, under a banner that features Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, and Gallo himself, goes into great detail about Gallo’s physical attributes (“Mr. Gallo is 5'11" and has blue eyes. There are no known genetic deformities in his ancestry (no cripples) and no history of congenital diseases. If you have seen The Brown Bunny, you know the potential size of the genitals if it's a boy.”) and his preferences regarding which female vessel should shell out the cool mil to carry his spawn:

Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr. Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration. In fact, for the next 30 days, he is offering a $50,000 discount to any potential female purchaser who can prove she has naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who can prove a direct family link to any of the German soldiers of the mid-century will also receive this discount. Under the laws of the Jewish faith, a Jewish mother would qualify a baby to be deemed a member of the Jewish religion. This would be added incentive for Mr. Gallo to sell his sperm to a Jew mother, his reasoning being with the slim chance that his child moved into the profession of motion picture acting or became a musical performer, this connection to the Jewish faith would guarantee his offspring a better chance at good reviews and maybe even a prize at the Sundance Film Festival or an Oscar.

Uh, okay. So in a curious new twist on his infamous and tiresome complaining that he don’t get no respect, he now suggests that good reviews and awards elude him because he is not Jewish. I can see his point; in the last 10 years, the directors of the Oscar-winning Best Pictures have been Clint Eastwood, Peter Jackson, Rob Marshall, Ron Howard, Ridley Scott, Sam Mendes, John Madden, James Cameron, Anthony Minghella, and Mel Gibson. Geez, I can’t tell if that’s a list of Hollywood directors or members of the Israeli parliament!

Gallo has directed fewer full-length films than Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Agnieszka Holland, John Singleton, Ang Lee, Antoine Fuqua, M. Night Shyamalan, Penny Marshall, and Julie Taymor, just to name a few directors who aren’t white men (unlike Gallo), which, contrary to his assertion, seems to be the primary indicator of whether one is to release a film to accolades and awards (certainly the Oscars, anyway, for whatever that’s worth). Good filmmakers all, though none of them have made exclusively good films (or claim to have done so)—and none of them is more famous for yapping about how they deserve more credit than they’re due than for the films they’ve made. Also unlike Gallo.

And there’s a whole list of white male directors who deserve more recognition, too. That Gallo fails to see them is perhaps the keenest indication of why his films haven’t gotten the praise he thinks they deserve—his director’s eye is always pointed back at himself.