Shortly after Donald Trump threw his stupid white hat into the presidential race, courtesy of a xenophobic rallying cry branding undocumented Mexican immigrants “rapists” who sling rock to the kids of 7th Heaven, he took his cotton candy mane to Hollywood. There, The Donald was feted by a shadowy group of Tinseltown conservatives dubbed the Friends of Abe, all of which was documented in a reach-around of a piece—presumably traded for exclusive party access—with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Hollywood isn’t abandoning me. They’ve been really good,” boasted Trump, swelling with the finest Trump Steaks® and braggadocio. “I think the liberals in Hollywood support me behind my back.”
And for a while, it sure seemed that way. The big-name Hollywood liberals, who’ve never met a Republican candidate they didn’t hate with the fire of a thousand Drogons, remained tight-lipped when it came to Trump—and a few even gave him lip service. Bryan Cranston called him “refreshing.” “You can’t help but get a kick out of him,” said Owen Wilson. Even Robert Redford, an avid environmentalist, LGBT ally, and Obama supporter, told Larry King, “I’m glad [Trump’s] in there because him being the way he is, and saying what he says the way he says it, I think he shakes things up and I think that’s very needed.” The Sundance Kid only backed off the comments after Trump started bragging about them on Twitter.
ADVERTISEMENT
But now, Hollywood has awoken from its Percocet-induced slumber to tee off on The Donald, no longer treating him as an amusing cultural curio but as a legitimate threat—a divider representing the absolute nadir of political theatre. And leading the charge is none other than Jennifer Lawrence, who knows a thing or two about rebelling against a political tyrant (see: The Hunger Games).
“If Donald Trump becomes president, that will be the end of the world,” Lawrence told Entertainment Weekly. “I genuinely believe that reality television has reached the ultimate place where now even things like this might just be for entertainment. It’s either that or it’s Hillary’s brilliant idea.”
She added, “I was watching him on the campaign trail and one guy said, ‘I love Donald Trump because he’s saying everything I’m thinking and I just can’t say it because of the PC factor.’ And I’m thinking, ‘You are absolutely right. That’s who I want representing my country, somebody politically incorrect. That will just be perfect.’”
While George Clooney is still Hollywood’s de facto spokesman, the 25-year-old Oscar winner has risen to become the voice of young female Hollywood. When misogynistic hackers exposed the private photos of hundreds of famous young women, Lawrence became the face of it, posing confidently on the cover of Vanity Fair and boldly declaring to her attackers, “You should cower with shame… Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, doesn’t mean that I asked for this. It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting.”
And when The Daily Beast revealed via the Sony hack that Lawrence, like many of her female contemporaries, was being paid less than her male counterparts (even Jeremy Renner) in American Hustle, the actress leveled-up, and is now being paid $20 million for the role she’s currently shooting in Passengers—compared to co-star Chris Pratt’s $12 million. Now, studio bigwigs will think twice before they lowball actresses.While Lawrence delivered one of the more brutally honest takedowns of Trump, other Hollywood A-listers have taken it upon themselves to go after the narcissistic ex-reality star.In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, longtime lefty Matt Damon lambasted Trump for his plan to build a wall (estimated cost: $6.4 billion) between the U.S. and Mexico to keep out immigrants, saying, “When people are talking about putting a wall up, I just can’t take them seriously. I can’t. It seems so un-American. We have people running for the highest elected office talking about putting a wall up that would keep my wife and her family out of the country, you know?”
“Clearly, what [Trump] said is idiotic, of course it’s idiotic,” Clooney added of Trump’s comments about Mexicans, at a Toronto Film Festival press conference. “Anybody who says as intolerant words as those should be laughed at and that’s pretty much [what] I think eventually history will do.”
Last month’s Emmy Awards ceremony quickly devolved into an unofficial roast of Donald Trump, with host Andy Samberg, Key and Peele, Amy Schumer’s comedy team, and Veep’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus all unloading on Trump. “I’ve got to say, sure, Donald Trump seems racist,” said Samberg, sans punchline, while Louis-Dreyfus, upon receiving the Best Actress award, said, “What a great honor it must be for you to honor me tonight,” before pausing and adding, “Sorry, Donald Trump said that. It’s getting trickier and trickier to satirize this stuff.”
Even the gleefully uninhibited South Park, in its 19th season, finally decided to take aim at The Donald, skewering him in a no-holds-barred episode involving a wall between Canada and America, and culminating in Mr. Garrison sodomizing Trump on his office carpet.
And New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, a very good friend of Trump’s whom The Donald once admitted wanting his daughter Ivanka to marry, backed away from reports that he was a Trump supporter, saying the comment he made about how it “would be great” if Trump were elected president was little more than an “off-handed” joke.
It seems those so-called Hollywood liberals Trump praised back in July are no longer supporting him behind his back. They’re kicking him in it.
