Bashing Morgan Freeman is the rage in Russia
Morgan Freeman’s honeykissed baritone has soundtracked dozens of documentaries and public announcements in the Oscar-winner’s long Hollywood career.
But the 80-year-old star’s tenure in the business probably failed to prep him for the Russian reaction that greeted a twominute online video he recorded recently for a group hoping to keep alive concerns over Kremlin meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Freeman is being portrayed as a tool of the U.S. establishment trying to bring down Trump, and as a man suffering from a “Messianic complex” from movie roles playing God and the president of the United States.
A “#StopMorganLie” hashtag is circulating aimed at discrediting the actor.
The Morgan Freeman video was put out this week by the Committee to Investigate Russia. Founded by Rob Reiner, the director of comedy classics such as This is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally, the nonpartisan group is pushing for a more aggressive acknowledgment of the alleged Russian hack. Morgan’s video sets that tone, referring to President Vladimir Putin as an “a former KGB spy” who has “set his sights on his sworn enemy, the United States.”
“We need our president to speak directly to us and to speak the truth,” Morgan urges.
But now the legendary American actor is a pariah in Russia, with Kremlin officials, Russian talking heads, and pro-Putin social media trolls ganging up to denounce Freeman. The allhands-on-deck response suggests a concerted Russian effort to discredit the actor via social media.
Reiner’s group does boast significant names among its advisory board, including former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and conservative never-Trump critic Charles Sykes. (But as ThinkProgress points out, the committee does not boast any actual Russian experts in its governing body).
The moviemaker told Variety this week the committee would be a “one-stop shop where people can come and be made aware” of “what the breaking news stories are today and what the Soviet Union and now Russia has been trying to do for many, many years.”
This week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also addressed the video, telling reporters Freeman’s comments “can hardly be taken seriously.”