Hollywood Elites Scramble To Embrace Law And Order As Iran Threat Looms Over Oscars

The irony dripping from the Hollywood Hills this week is thick enough to choke a McKinsey consultant.

On Sunday, the 98th Academy Awards will transform the Dolby Theatre into a high-tech fortress. We’re talking 1,000 private security guards, LAPD SWAT teams, bomb-sniffing dogs, and a fleet of surveillance drones circling overhead. Why the sudden affection for “law and order” and “border security” from the crowd that usually spends its awards speeches demanding we abolish both?

Because the FBI dropped a cold dose of reality on the champagne-and-caviar set: The Islamic Republic of Iran is reportedly eyeing California for retaliatory drone strikes.

The same Hollywood elite that has spent the last year lining up to sign “pledges” against Israel—nearly 4,000 industry professionals, including Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, and Mark Ruffalo—now find themselves begging the thin blue line to protect them from the very radicalism they’ve spent months ignoring. These are the same people who vowed to boycott Israeli film institutions for “apartheid.” Now they’re relying on U.S. federal intelligence to ensure an Iranian drone doesn’t crash their red carpet.

The cognitive dissonance doesn’t stop with the Middle East’s only democracy. The celebrity vanguard has spent the last month savaging President Trump for taking the fight to Tehran. Jane Fonda is out there comparing the dismantling of a terror regime to Vietnam. Rosie O’Donnell is frantically hashtagging for impeachment. And John Cusack is busy spinning “wag the dog” conspiracies.

Some of these luminaries attack Trump for neutralizing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the moment the regime’s “unmanned aerial vehicles” are spotted off the West Coast, the Academy isn’t calling for “de-escalation” or “ceasefire.” They’re calling the LAPD.

Oscar producer Raj Kapoor says he wants everyone to feel “safe and protected and welcome.”

As Conan O’Brien prepares to take his inevitable swipe at Trump from the podium, he’ll be doing so behind a one-mile security perimeter and a literal army of armed professionals. In Hollywood, it seems, “walls” and “aggressive defense” are only immoral when they’re protecting a country—not when they’re protecting a Best Actress trophy.