A mea-culpa in the form of backpedaling. Persona non grata in Hollywood since she participated in mid-November in a demonstration denouncing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, actress Susan Sarandon has disavowed the comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which caused her to be dropped by her agents. On Instagram, the star of Thelma and Louise says she made a “big mistake”. “My clumsily worded remarks imply that Jews have never experienced persecution, which is false. They have faced centuries of oppression and violence in Europe and on our soil,” she apologized, “I deeply regret having underestimated this reality and hurt people with these words. I intended to show solidarity in the fight against intolerance of all kinds. I failed”.
On November 17, the 77-year-old actress took part in a pro-Palestinian march in New York, calling for a ceasefire. Invited to speak, she improvised a few words. “Faced with the rise of anti-Semitism, American Jews are discovering fear and understanding what the Muslim community is experiencing in our country,” she said. These comments, perceived as anti-Semitic, sparked a heated controversy. Susan Sarandon was let go by the UTA agency which looked after her interests.
The same fate was reserved for Mexican Scream 6 actress Melissa Barrera. Co-head of the film department at CAA, Maha Dakhil, who represents Tom Cruise who opposed his dismissal, had to resign from the board of directors for comparing the Israeli armed intervention to genocide. But, she was able to keep her position as agent thanks to the intervention of the Top Gun star.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to divide the entertainment industry. ER and The Morning Show star Julianna Margulies also had to apologize after declaring in a podcast that “those in the African-American and LGBT communities who supported the Palestinian cause were brainwashed to hate the Jews”.
On Thursday, the British Artists Collective for Palestine published an open letter urging the English authorities to preserve freedom of expression. The signatories, including Olivia Colman (The Crown), Aimee Lou Wood (Sex Education), were protesting in particular against the sanctions taken against their peers who express their concerns and solidarity with the situation in Gaza. Screenings and exhibitions like that of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei have been canceled.