Hollywood groupthink is even more pervasive than we think.
Sure, the industry has plenty of libertarian and conservative denizens, but the vast majority stay whisper-silent lest those views damage their careers.
Most stars happily toe the progressive party line, thinking it may help their job prospects or because they’re true believers.
A sprinkling of stars has been slowly, but surely tip-toeing off the progressive plantation.
The following artists won’t be pulling the lever for former President Donald Trump or even Governor Ron DeSantis anytime soon. Still, they are speaking out, betraying the unofficial talking points of their ideological peers.
More, please. We need independent artists sharing independent thoughts. And it might start with Ice Cube.
The rapper-turned-actor/director is reliably left of center, including his support for reparations for black Americans historically mistreated by Hollywood. He doesn’t align with any firm progressive playbook, though. We learned that when he exchanged visions with the Trump team on his plans for black America.
Now, Ice Cube is targeting the culture’s “gatekeepers.” He promised a tour, of sorts, of podcasters from all walks of life to work around existing roadblocks that limit debate.
People “know who [the gatekeepers] are,” the artist said. Left unsaid? We also know they’re religiously left of center, and that’s an understatement.
‘So what am I going to do to deal with those motherf***ing gatekeepers? Well, what I’m going to do is go on a f*** the gatekeepers podcast tour … and I’m going to talk to everybody. And get a chance to get my message out to the people. Be able to let people hear from me, you know.’”
Podcast giant Adam Carolla shared on Twitter that he’s already made contact with Camp Cube.
Oscar winners Tim Robbins and Mark Rylance bucked the Hollywood system, which followed every last letter of the Lockdown Playbook™, by questioning pandemic overreach.
Robbins opened up last year about his mixed feelings on COVID, admitting he fell for the media and government lines that we all had to stay home and accept mandatory doses of a newly-developed vaccine.
“I bought into it,” the “Bull Durham” star told podcaster Russell Brand. Then, he started to do his own investigating on the subject. He came to radically different conclusions that didn’t involve silencing speech or shuttering small businesses by default.
I noticed a lot of people were not adhering again to these requests made by their government. I thought, well, they’re going to have a hard day coming up, that there will be some serious death here …. When I saw that there wasn’t a huge death rate, after I witnessed personally what was happening, I started to wonder more and more about what we were being told and whether it was true or not.
“Bridge of Spies” star Rylance came to a similar realization. The 63-year-old actor, known for his progressive activism, said he took a “distilled garlic solution” daily, along with Vitamin C, until he was forced to get the jab to visit family stateside. What drove his hesitation?
Science started to sound like a religion. And really science is no different than religion, just an attempt by men to describe reality.
Critics can say, and they have a point, that both Robbins and Rylance spoke up long after the problem impacted Americans. It’s still bold of them to speak now for two reasons.
First, the COVID regulations were embraced like a religion among the Hollywood Left, with radical players like Jimmy Kimmel and Howard Stern suggesting that unvaccinated Americans should be denied health care.
Second, a new wave of COVID or a similar virus would likely trigger many of the same draconian measures that didn’t work the first-time around. The more public figures tarnish those measures, the more likely big government would back down next time.
Woody Harrelson took a more confrontational approach to pandemic mania. He used his monologue time on “Saturday Night Live” earlier this year to question the vaccine mandates with humor and a sense of mischief.
He brought up an alleged movie plot he turned down for one big reason. It was too crazy to be true.
So the movie goes like this: The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over. I threw the script away. I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day.
It might be the most rebellious “SNL” moment since a 2017 sketch dubbed “Woke Jeans.”
Another core tenant of woke Hollywood is the war on comedy. You’re not allowed to criticize the Thought Police’s impact on humor lest you be canceled (or forced to give a mewling, hostage-style apology). Jennifer Lawrence poked the woke bear anyway.
The Oscar winner, while promoting her quasi-raunchy film “No Hard Feelings,” defended both the film and the hunger for R-rated comedies, the kind Hollywood abandoned over the risk of bruised feelings.
I think it’s time for a good old-fashioned laugh and it really is hard to make a comedy where you’re not offending people … everybody in some sense will be offended by this film — you’re welcome.
The film over-performed box office predictions by $5 million in its opening frame.
It’s a sad state of affairs when we must celebrate stars thinking for themselves, ever so slightly, and for sharing their thoughts with the public. It’s the new, unhealthy normal, and bold thinkers deserve some sort of praise.
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Continue reading this exclusive article and join the conversation, plus watch free videos on DW+
Already a member?