Actors defend Pratt, resulting in backlash
Over the weekend, Chris Pratt had to deal with people on Twitter calling him the “worst Holly wood Chris,” but as the week’s progressed, the “Guardians of the Galaxy” star has become the red-hot focus of a cultural debate about his suspected conservative politics and religious beliefs, as well as anger over the 2020 presidential election, anti-LGBTQ politics and straight rich white male movie stars throwing around their “privilege.”
That’s in part due to Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr., his “Avengers” franchise co-stars, believing it would be helpful to go on social media Tuesday and righteously lecture their millions of fans about how Pratt is really a good guy who is deserving of Christian charity, tolerance and consideration of what’s really important in the world right now.
In their social media defense of Pratt, Ruffalo and Downey joined Pratt’s wife, Hollywood royalty Katherine Schwarzenegger, who lamented on Instagram: “There’s so much going on in the world and people are struggling in so many ways. Being mean is so yesterday.”
Instead of winning people to their view that Pratt is an unfair target of cancel culture, Downey, Ruffalo and Pratt’s other “Avengers” defenders — Jeremy Renner, Zoe Saldana and James Gunn — only seemed to give people more reasons to be suspicious of their friend and to dislike him even more.
People’s stated concerns about Pratt center on: 1) his well-known reluctance to talk about his possibly conservative politics, even though he has famously political in-laws (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver) who, with his wife, Katherine, have expressed strong anti-Donald Trump views; and 2) his association with Hillsong, a celebrity-friendly evangelical church whose leaders have espoused anti-LGBTQ views in the past.
Fans of Marvel films also criticized the actors for taking a very public stand for a male co-star but apparently never speaking up for female co-stars, including Brie Larson, who became targets for daily cyberbullying and death threats.
“And where were you when Brie Larson was getting ruthlessly attacked for months by millions of men online with death threats and constant harassment simply for existing?” someone asked Downey.