Celebrities have no problem lecturing you on the proper stance towards foreigners; Samuel L Jackson shows the problem with foreign actors.
If you watched the collection of Hollywood awards shows this winter (something I do because I am an entertainment masochist) you would pick up on a theme. Joining in with the unhinged hatred for Donald Trump was a constant stream of activist prolix from celebrities on immigration policy.
From the red carpet, to the podium, dictating proper comportment towards immigration was a constant rant. Of course we are supposed to overlook that the Trophy Season culminated with a monumental screw-up at the Oscars. The people who pontificate on the complexities of vetting foreigners and their documentation could not even hand off an envelope correctly, but never mind. They are experts on the subject!
Enter Samuel L. Jackson. In an interview with New York City’s Hot 97 radio station he had some words of opposition to foreign workers in his own field of labor. He mentioned the recent hit film, “Get Out” as an example. “There are a lot of black British actors in these movies,” said the actor. “I tend to wonder what that movie would have been with an American brother who really understands that.”
He did not confine his hot take to one film, bringing up “Selma” as another example. “There are some brothers in America who could have been in that movie who would have had a different idea about how King thinks or how King felt.” What is rather telling is the lack of potent outrage at his intolerance for foreign workers. There are no charges hurled that Nic Fury is a racist xenophobe.
The defense is the acting profession and entertainment industry is exempt, or something. But some of the citizens who are criticized the harshest on the subject are those who fear foreign workers are stealing their jobs. Celebrities mock this mindset as racist and intolerant. Plus, that facet of the issue does not apply to what Jackson refers to anyway, correct?
Oops. “They’re cheaper than us, for one thing. They don’t cost as much …”
Another bit of irony to this is a recent speech delivered in the British Parliament by actor/rapper Riz Ahmed. During an annual quorum discussing the diversity of British television, Ahmed mentioned how Hollywood productions display more of a melting pot image. British actors are drawn here.
Addressing the same crowd a year earlier Idris Elba confirms this is the case. “I had to climb out of the box. In other words I didn’t go to America because I couldn’t GET parts. I went to America because I was running OUT of parts. They were all the same sort of parts.” Sounds like they are contending with an influx of foreign workers taking work away from native employees.
So yes, immigration is affecting Hollywood. Samuel L. Jackson seems resistant to this. Interestingly, he is not absorbing any of the usual charges and invective from celebrities when citizens express very similar concerns.
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