What happens when you give a Hollywood star an open platform instead of scripted dialogue? We found out when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its 90th annual Oscars in March.
With anti-gun sentiments on full display at the award shows preceding the Oscars—including the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild awards—viewers were in no mood for more of the same from the Academy Awards. So they simply tuned out—in masses. The net result was the lowest ratings in the show’s history. The viewership plummet of a whopping 16 percent could best be equated to a cinematic box-office bust.
As Breitbart reported, the double-digit crash shouldn’t have been surprising. With host Jimmy Kimmel returning for a second consecutive year, they noted that “the Academy basically told 50 percent of the country to go watch something else.” Kimmel, of course, has become a polarizing political figure who has increasingly turned his late-night talk show into a late-night lecture against the evils of gun ownership.
With the show host clearly being anti-gun, and most of Hollywood’s A-listers joining in, it’s no wonder middle America didn’t bother to tune in. Why watch liberal elites—most of whom have no problem brandishing firearms on film when there’s a fat check awaiting their fakery—take the stage and decry our right to bear arms while their armed bodyguards look on? Thus, the same law-abiding gun owners who showed up in droves to the polls in 2016 delivered a similar message to the Oscars by tuning out in droves.
Heavily Protected Stars Wear Gun Control Pins
Speaking of the Oscars, the 2018 Academy Awards was a time for making statements. In addition to wearing black attire and a “Time’s Up” pin to signal solidarity with the movement against sexual harassment, stars also adorned themselves with an orange pin, courtesy of Everytown for Gun Safety. The Michael Bloomberg-funded group was distributing the pins and encouraging nominees to use their platform to advocate for gun control.
Unfortunately, we’re seeing far too many celebrities who dwell in the land of make-believe now crossing over into the world of “must-believe”—i.e., you must believe us when we say gun control is the answer. It doesn’t really matter what the question is, gun control is always the answer.
That message couldn’t be any more disingenuous—or ironic—coming from a group of wealthy, elitist, sheltered celebs. As their armed bodyguards surrounded them on Tinseltown’s biggest night, these hypocrites hit the red carpet to pose with their Everytown pins gleaming brightly. The few viewers still paying attention to cinema’s self-congratulatory night received the memo loud and clear: The lives of Hollywood A-listers are valuable and worth protecting, the lives of you and I are not.
These “do as I say, not as I do” elites aren’t working to make the world a safer place. They’re working to take power away from the common citizen, while keeping it all for themselves. And the Oscar for Best Deception goes to … Hollywood hypocrites.
