IN THE SPOTLIGHT
He seemed to know his comments were going to get him into trouble, prefacing his remarks with, “By the way, this is going to be in the press. It will be horrible.” Depp’s remarks came eight days after a gunman opened fire on Republican lawmakers as they practiced for a charity baseball game.
Depp’s remarks come weeks after The Public Theater in New York was criticized for its production of “Julius Caesar” that portrayed a Trumplike dictator in a business suit with a long tie who gets knifed to death onstage.
The show followed condemnation for comedian Kathy Griffin, who lost her job co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special and had all her upcoming comedy shows canceled after posing for a photograph in which she gripped a likeness of the president’s severed, bloody head. Pop star Madonna also was criticized for saying at a rally that she had thought “an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”
Musicians have also gone after the president, with a Snoop Dogg’s video of him shooting a Trump-lookalike clown and Moby putting out a video in which Trump resembles a Nazi-like Iron Man who takes over the world with a missile-firing machine shaped like a swastika and dollar symbol.
Trump’s election has not quieted many in the arts community who assailed the candidate, with Robert De Niro saying he’d “like to punch” Trump “in the face.”