Zero Dark Thirty and The Help star Jessica Chastain has expressed her support for the removal of the bronze statue of Teddy Roosevelt that has stood outside New York City’s American Museum of Natural History since 1940.
The two-time Oscar-nominated star posted a photo of herself on Instagram giving a thumbs down gesture in front of the statue. “Out with the old… in with the BETTER,” she wrote.
The museum recently stated it will take down the Roosevelt statue, following demands from far-left activists claiming that it is a racist work of art. One of the radical left-wing groups leading the charge is Decolonize this Place, which has claimed that Roosevelt is “problematic” because of his attitude toward Native Americans.
The statue, which depicts the 26th president on horseback accompanied by a Native American man and a black man, “communicates a racial hierarchy that the museum and members of the public have long found disturbing,” museum leaders said in a statement.
New York Mayor Bill De Blasio (D) also voiced his support for the statue’s removal on racial grounds. “The statue clearly presents a white man superior to people of color and that’s just not acceptable to in this day and age,” de Blasio said on Monday.
Jessica Chastain’s movie career took off after she starred in the 2011 move The Help, which has come under fire in recent days for its “white savior” theme of white women helping black women.
Co-star Bryce Dallas Howard has renounced the movie, saying that she wouldn’t make the same film today. Chastain has so far remained silent on the subject.
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