Can't seem to disable mouse events

I have a gradient that I’m using as a vignette over an entire flash scene. It is contained with a movie clip, and I’m trying to disable it, I’m trying mouseEnabled = false, and mouseChildren = false, but for some reason, it is obscuring the buttons below it still, when I set the visibility to false everthing is fine, but then I can’t see it . . . . is this a bug, or am I missing something