Paramount recently accused actor Mark Ruffalo of invoking “antisemitic tropes” in a video on social media. The statement was made in reference to a video that the Marvel star shared on Instagram. Now, Committee for the First Amendment (or 1A Committee) founder Jane Fonda has shared her stance on the controversy and chosen her side.
Jane Fonda defends Mark Ruffalo after Paramount’s allegations
Jane Fonda supported Mark Ruffalo in a statement shared on the 1A Committee’s Instagram page. “Mark Ruffalo has a First Amendment right to speak out about politics, powerful corporations and this dangerous merger — full stop,” she shared. The statement continued, “Calling his criticism antisemitic is a smear to delegitimize criticism of the merger and to distract from the question Paramount would rather not answer: Should one company be allowed to accumulate this much power over our movies, television and news?”
Ruffalo shared the original video that Paramount commented on to his Instagram Stories. In it, Ruffalo mentions “profoundly scary technologies.” The “technologies” being referenced were technologies created by Oracle and used by the Israeli military. Oracle was co-founded by Larry Ellison, who is the father of David Ellison, Paramount Skydance’s CEO. Ruffalo compared Larry Ellison to a “classic oligarch” and raised concerns about the potential consequences of the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger going through.
He also accused the Ellisons of “crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power.” A Paramount spokesperson responded to Ruffalo’s words in a statement. The statement said the company is “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute.” Moreover, the representative shared how “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’ should be avoided during a corporate deal.” They added that using such terms “cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe.”
Originally reported by Ritika Singh on ComingSoon.
