Checking In With Hollywood Post-Election

Movies

It’s been a week since the American Presidential election, so people on both sides of the political divide have had some time to let the result set in. The average citizen is dealing with the incoming President and the reality of his and his party’s overwhelming victory in their own way, but I think everyone has been curious to see how Hollywood would react. In the election’s immediate aftermath, I wrote about what this meant for Hollywood in terms of the nature of celebrity (because those big endorsements – which appear to have cost a pretty penny – didn’t amount to much), the infusion of identity politics into entertainment (most seem to agree that the election was partly a repudiation of woke culture and its domineering nature), and whether the evil cancel culture had been dealt its death blow (nobody was offended by Tony Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico joke except the people who get paid to pretend to be offended). And in the past week, Hollywood has responded to each of these topics through some of their obnoxious loudmouths; every now and then, I get a good bead on something. Let’s go down the list and try – and fail – not to laugh.

Rachel Zegler Lashes Out at Trump Voters

The most recent incident was Rachel Zegler, the star of Disney’s looming Snow White live-action remake, making her disgust with the election results known. In an Instagram post you can see below courtesy of X account End Wokeness (which is a great follow), Zegler spent two paragraphs mourning Donald Trump’s victory and a final one wishing that Trump and his supporters “never know peace.”

Disney’s Snow White (Rachel Zegler) says she hopes harm befalls Trump and all his voters: pic.twitter.com/rEWlpOVZvu

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 13, 2024

“I find myself speechless,” then she goes on for three paragraphs; words have no meaning anymore. But the more pertinent point is that she learned nothing from the election and the lack of celebrity influence on it. Trump’s victory in the face of the massive celebrity push for his opponent, their cries of victimhood mixed with admonishments of anyone who disagreed, should have caused a little bit of soul searching and, if it was honest soul searching, an understanding that they are not the center of the universe, and their megaphone-projected tirades accomplished nothing aside from assuaging their own egos. Maybe… just maybe… they should simply sit down and be quiet once in a while. And yet, here’s Rachel Zegler, wishing misery on half the country because she didn’t get her way. I don’t care about the first two paragraphs; sometimes people want to vent, and for some reason I don’t understand, they often pick social media as the place to do it. But she can’t stop there; she has to insult, to lord herself and her perceived righteousness over people she hates. Not only has Zegler learned nothing from the election but she’s learned nothing from the backlash to her smug interviews about Snow White, where she mocked one of the most beloved films of all time. I doubt she’ll be alone; she’s the canary in the coal mine warning us that the pretty people still hate us. (There’s also a Variety article whining about people who find celebrity political endorsements annoying, and you can tell it’s because they support Democrats; there’s no mention of Zachary Levi or Gina Carano, just a smug jab at Kevin Sorbo.)

One Piece Writer Signals More Woke on the Way

Recently, there have been signs of a sea change in the entertainment industry pushing away from woke content, such as Chris Gore’s report that Marvel is jettisoning the All New, All Different crap and going back to fun movies with characters people love or the realization that woke consulting firms, specifically Sweet Baby Inc., hurt the video games they’re hired to help make. This would have been a gradual, sometimes jerky process at its best, but it looked like it may have been on its way, and the election should have only reinforced the notion of the American rejection of woke because Trump won the popular vote. But, apparently, this is only firing up Hollywood activist writers to make more “resistance” narratives. Randy Troy, a staff writer on Netflix’s live-action One Piece adaptation, said as much in this X post (which has since been deleted, so here’s a screenshot courtesy of That Park Place):

Troy is telling people that one of the manga’s villains, Wapol, is a Trump allegory. But check out the community note at the bottom of the post; it details the true origins of Wapol according to One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, and that makes a lot more sense considering the time frame of the manga. But, as X users pointed out, according to That Park Place, Wapol was created before Trump entered politics – in other words, before the left decided he was “literally Hitler™.” Troy said that Trump had mentioned getting into politics as far back as the 80s, and while that’s true, he never said if he’d be a Republican or a Democrat at the time, and if he were the latter, he’d be treated as a hero by these same people. Trump made that assertion to liberal Oprah Winfrey, who encouraged him to run at the time; I doubt a Japanese writer saw fit to craft a manga villain out of him over that, if he ever even saw it. It’s pretty obvious what’s really going on; Wapol is going to be the main villain of One Piece season 2, and he’s probably going to be a Trump stand-in, so Troy is trying to get out ahead of it and say that Wapol was always supposed to represent Trump. Nice try, but nobody’s buying it, and I’ll bet that if you watch season 2 of One Piece, you won’t be able to miss it because it’ll have the subtlety and nuance of an avalanche. Is this a recent decision? I don’t know, but if it is, they’re doing some rewriting because One Piece season 2 started filming in July. Regardless, we’re probably in for more of this in the coming years; as the Critical Drinker put it:

Prepare for another four years of movies and TV shows that are “a commentary on Trumpism”.

— The Critical Drinker (@TheCriticalDri2) November 6, 2024

Is the Left Canceling George Clooney?

This is an odd one, but it’s indicative of the soulless nature of Hollywood, celebrity, and the left. For some background, I have to get into the election season for a moment. In July, after Trump’s earlier-than-usual debate with his rival at the time, Joe Biden, it became clear – or, more accurately, it became impossible for the media to cover up – that Biden was in serious cognitive decline. The calls came in for Biden to drop out of the election, and one of the most attention-grabbing ones came from George Clooney in the form of an opinion piece in the New York Times. Clooney is a friend of President Barack Obama, and many suspect Obama asked Clooney to write the article (which, considering Clooney had co-hosted a huge fundraiser for Biden not long before that, is a reasonable assumption). We know the rest; Biden stepped down, Kamala Harris took his place as the nominee, and Trump laid waste to the Democratic Party on Election Day. Now, people are blaming Clooney for urging Biden to step aside, and Clooney is, according to his reps, “disheartened” and “taking a step back” from politics.

Trump should not forget to thank the Hollywood celebrities. Especially George Clooney. pic.twitter.com/ZVxDB2yxB4

— Fritz Deelman (@DeelmanFritz) November 6, 2024

Far be it from me to defend George Clooney (I’ve heard from people – albeit via third-hand accounts –that in real life, he’s a nasty prick), but I agree that it’s unfair to blame him for Harris’ loss any more than anyone else. First, I doubt Joe Biden left the race because that guy from ER told him to any more than people voted for Kamala Harris because Jennifer Lopez shamed them into it. And that’s doubly true if Obama really did put him up to it; you’d think he would try to quell the uproar over something he got Clooney into. However, it’s hard not to smile at seeing the kind of hate and antagonism people like Clooney spent years fomenting being turned on him. Is this “canceling,” exactly? Not really, I suppose, although it looks like Clooney is being forced out of the political conversation for comments that were deemed harmful months later. He’ll probably still make movies, but the people who are angry at him now are the ones who usually love him for being so outspoken, and they’re telling him to shut up. The left will still turn on people they decide are their enemies, even allies who were just following orders, so cancel culture may still have some time left. But it’s funny to see it coming to someone as liberal as George Clooney while Trump-supporting Tony Hinchcliffe is about to get even more popular.

Bonus: Mark Ruffalo is Having a Tough One:

“We got our asses kicked,” Mark Ruffalo says of the election while being honored at ACLU SoCal’s Bill of Rights Awards pic.twitter.com/Af8v25zKYe

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 11, 2024

I don’t have anything to add to this; it’s just funny.

Let us know where you think Hollywood is headed in the wake of the election in the comments!

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