Resurgent President Donald Trump is popular, getting things done, and making good on a liberating agenda as promised during last year’s election campaign. Those three things are enough to have sparked a grim warning Sunday that Hollywood’s gilded elites need to oppose and resist Trump to avoid being “contaminated” by the radical changes he is delivering.
American film director Todd Haynes gave his warning while speaking to AFP in Berlin, where he heads the jury at the city’s Berlinale film festival.
The director of Far from Heaven and Carol said he was shocked – yes, shocked – by what he called Trump’s “barbaric assault on American democratic institutions.”
“It is an appalling moment that we’re in right now that will take every bit of energy to resist and revert back to a system that, flawed as it is, is something that we’ve taken for granted as Americans,” the 64-year-old said.
He noted with disappointment how many corporations are working alongside the new Trump administration in Washington as it seeks to deliver the changes American voters approved when they sent Trump to electoral victory.
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Major U.S. companies from investment bank Goldman Sachs to social media giant Meta have announced changes to their Diversity and Inclusion (DEI) policies, as they are frequently derided as woke, meaningless distractions by Trump and his supporters.
“We’re already seeing unfortunately, like not necessarily in Hollywood, but in many other places that deal with massive corporate power, already a yielding to this new administration that is just shocking,” Haynes told AFP.
“When people say ‘oh, they’re just playing the long game’, that’s when you find yourself becoming contaminated by the culture that you’re in and losing your own ability to stand up. And that’s what has happened in our past. And we have to be aware of the danger of it,” he continued.
Last week, major Hollywood studio Disney informed its staff that it was dropping DEI as a “performance factor,” but would still include “inclusion” as one of its core values.
Are you ready for Hollywood elites to teach you what True Patriotism is all about? https://t.co/xEnTzmX9pi
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) September 14, 2024
AFP reports Haynes also warned about the impact of “the callous, hateful campaign against trans people in particular and queer people in general” during Trump’s campaign for the presidency last year.
“I think we haven’t realised how much everything is suddenly at stake,” he told AFP. “It means we all have to start fighting for all the things we’ve been fighting for in the past, all over again.”
Haynes’s planned movie about a 1930s gay romance was put on pause last year after star Joaquin Phoenix dropped out just days before the start of filming for reasons unknown.
