Last week, actor Matthew McConaughey stood before the cameras and proclaimed that millions of innocent Americans should lose their Second Amendment rights over something someone else did.
This makes about as much sense as telling me I can’t drive because someone else got into an accident, but that’s McConaughey’s argument.
Naturally, because Breitbart News is Breitbart News, we ridiculed the stupidity of his gun control arguments and his shameless, wild-eyed hypocrisy.
In movies and TV, McConaughey has repeatedly glamourized the use of firearms, often as a necessary problem solver—you shoot a guy, problem solved.
McConaughey’s hypocrisy on this issue is even worse than that. After two decades of running around romanticizing guns, he stood in the White House briefing room and lectured the media about the “sensationalized media coverage” of mass shootings and shooters.
Well, give him some credit. He at least understands that media indeed affects behavior, because, of course it does. But guess who’s pretending not to understand that? Sulu and Wonder Woman aka George Takei and Lynda Carter.
After we ran the piece detailing McConaughey’s romanticizing of shooting people, Sulu and Wonder Woman responded directly to our article by playing stupid.
“Yes, and I flew an invisible plane on screen but still support abiding by the laws of air traffic (and physics),” the 70-year-old Carter tweeted. “Do people really not understand reality vs. fiction?”
“And I have used a deadly phaser many times on screen even though I’m a non-violent Buddhist,” the 85-year-old Takei tweeted. “What’s your damn point?”
After Carter spotted Takei’s tweet, she added: “Looks like George and I had the same reaction. Great minds!”
Great minds!?
Together that mind is 155 years old, and the best rebuttal you can come up with is to feign ignorance?
When the far-left Daily News asked for comment on those two rocket scientists, our editor-in-chief Alex Marlow got it exactly right:
If Mr. McConaughey is seriously concerned about gun violence, he’ll stop glamorizing firearm usage in his movies. However, our preference would be he continue to make movies, with or without guns, and stop lecturing law-abiding citizens and trying to infringe on our Second Amendment rights. Also, we always love covering Mr. Takei, but – oh my! – what’s his damn point – that Hollywood’s love affair with guns and violence doesn’t influence the culture?
Believe me, George Takei knows better and has said so in writing. In his 1994 biography To the Stars (which I’ve read), he talks at length about the responsibility he felt portraying Asian-Americans on screen in a dignified way. In fact, his knowledge of the power of “fiction” to affect human behavior is such a concern, that he was torn about appearing in John Wayne’s pro-Vietnam movie The Green Berets (1968). Ultimately, he accepted the role, but 26 years later, he was still wrestling with it.
Gee, George, if Hollywood doesn’t affect behaviors and beliefs and how people look at the world, why all the anguish?
What’s more, if movies and TV don’t matter, why take on that responsibility of how you as an Asian man are portrayed?
Takei knows better, and the 1994 George Takei would point and laugh at the 2022 George Takei debasing himself with such outrageous lies.
The question is not: “Do movies and TV affect our culture and behavior?” Why is that not the question? Because OF COURSE, they do! It’s a stupid question. Of course, stories and characters and words and pictures affect human behavior. What’s your next question: “Is water wet?”
The only serious question is this: “Is freedom worth the risks that come with freedom?”
Put another way: Is the convenience of the car worth the annual 40,000-plus automobile deaths? Is letting your kids run outside worth the risk they might be abducted? Is owning a gun worth the risk of an accident? Is having a bathtub worth the risk you might slip and fall? Is having a drink worth the strain on your liver? Is free speech worth all the terrible things people say? And finally…
Is artistic freedom worth the risk of all the fallout that comes with allowing people to express themselves in any way they please artistically?
If you understand America, the answer to all those questions is, OF COURSE IT’S WORTH THE RISK! A risk-free society can only be achieved through totalitarianism. Who wants to live in bubble wrap? Living life on your own terms is what being an American is all about.
But to play dumb and deny the truth about Hollywood’s effect on our culture is simply laughable, especially coming from two people who work in the industry.
Animal House (1978) altered teenage culture for at least a decade. I know. I was at the toga parties. Rap music and videos have damaged black and white teen culture, especially how those idiots hold a gun. Fight Club immediately created fight clubs. Ninety years ago, in a romantic comedy, Clark Gable didn’t wear an undershirt, and undershirt sales tanked. Seventy years ago, all of Hollywood geared up to prepare America for World War II. Twenty years ago, all of Hollywood geared up to ensure we lost the War on Terror. Forty-five years ago, John Travolta turned disco into a national phenomenon.
And these geezers can’t deny that sci-fi is immune from this phenomenon. Forty years ago, Reese’s Pieces spiked in popularity because a lifeless, animatronic puppet ate them in E.T.
Look at right now. Do you think Hollywood produces one woke box office flop after another, thinking, This won’t change people’s behavior? Of course not. The whole idea of woke is to use the mighty power of moving images to rewire human nature.
Since the beginning of time, people have used stories to shape their cultures. Christ specifically used stories (parables) to spread the Gospel. Advertisers spend hundreds of billions every year to alter our behavior. One of the first things fascists like Stalin, Castro, Mao, Mussolini, and Hitler did (after disarming everyone) was seize control of the arts.
Americans have always owned guns. Always. What’s new is this mass-shooting phenomenon, which directly coincided with movies, TV, and videogames fetishizing firearms (starting in the ’80s) and a 24/7 news culture that dry humps these stories to where mass shootings become an incentive for any psycho who thinks mass murder is worth the upside of national fame and knowing you shook up the world.
In my small way, I’m part of this… As a First and Second Amendment absolutist, as someone who uses a public perch to fight for the right of everyone — left and right — to say whatever they want, live however they want, and own as many firearms as they want, unlike those liars Sulu and Wonder Woman, I acknowledge and accept responsibility for the downside that comes with that kind of advocacy. But I can also make a case for why the alternative (tyranny) is much worse.
The liars Sulu and Wonder Woman want it both ways. They want you and I to live under the tyranny of gun-grabbing while they not only enjoy the artistic freedom to glamorize shooting people but also the First Amendment right to lie about the downside of that artistic freedom.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.