\n<\/p>\n
More than 400 Hollywood stars have signed an open letter by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) condemning Disney\u2019s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! under pressure from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The letter, released five days after Disney \u201cpre-empted\u201d the late-night talkshow over host Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s comments on the death of slain rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, calls on all Americans to defend their right to speak freely. It states that efforts to pressure artists, journalists and others with retaliation for their speech \u201cstrike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country\u201d.<\/p>\n
Signatories of the letter include Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Jason Bateman, Jane Fonda, Selena Gomez, Olivia Rodrigo, Natalie Portman, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Ben Stiller, Jamie Lee Curtis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Keaton, Regina King, Diego Luna and Lin-Manuel Miranda.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week, Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after the government threatened a private company with retaliation, marking a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cIn an attempt to silence its critics, our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk show hosts, artists, creatives, and entertainers across the board. This runs counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our constitution guarantees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disney\u2019s CEO, Bob Iger, and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden reportedly made the decision to pull Kimmel from the air over a comment in his Monday night monologue after the shooting of Kirk on 10 September. \u201cThe Maga gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,\u201d he said. It was not clear if Kimmel was suggesting that Kirk\u2019s suspected killer, Tyler Robinson, was a literal supporter of Maga, or that the killing was part of a broader shift toward violence in American politics, particularly on the right.<\/p>\n
Regardless, the comment deeply angered Trump supporters, including Brendan Carr, the head of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who said Kimmel had made a \u201cconcerted effort to try to lie to the American people\u201d. Carr threatened to pull affiliate broadcast licenses if Disney did not \u201ctake action\u201d against the host.<\/p>\n
That threat, followed by affiliate owners Nexstar and Sinclair pre-empting the show (and in the case of Nexstar, demanding that Kimmel apologize on air and donate to Kirk\u2019s rightwing activist group Turning Point USA), led to Disney\u2019s suspension. The decision has prompted widespread outcry over censorship \u2013 even from fellow Republicans such as Ted Cruz \u2013 as well as calls to boycott Disney.<\/p>\n
After the suspension sparked a national debate on free speech and the muzzling tactics of the Trump administration \u2013 and spurred calls to boycott Disney as well as protests outside the company\u2019s headquarters in Burbank, California \u2013 Disney announced on Monday that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would return to broadcast this Tuesday, saying that \u201cdays of thoughtful conversations\u201d with Kimmel had led to the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now find ourselves in a modern McCarthy era, facing exactly the type of heavy-handed government censorship our constitution rightfully forbids,\u201d Anthony D Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, told the Hollywood Reporter. \u201cThe silencing of Jimmy Kimmel and jawboning of media outlets through lawsuits and threats to their licenses evoke dark memories of the 1950s. We must remember, however, that Senator McCarthy was ultimately disgraced and neutralized once Americans mobilized and stood up to him. We must do the same today because together, our voices are louder and together, we will fight to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cWe also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power \u2013 because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the Kimmel suspension, Carr has also threatened that he might be \u201clooking into\u201d The View, another ABC talkshow. On Monday, the show\u2019s co-host Whoopi Goldberg addressed the comments: \u201cDid y\u2019all really think we weren\u2019t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel? I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone can say something they shouldn\u2019t and get taken off the air,\u201d she added. \u201cBut the government cannot apply pressure to force someone to be silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than 400 Hollywood stars have signed an open letter by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) condemning Disney\u2019s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! under pressure from the Trump administration. The letter, released five days after Disney \u201cpre-empted\u201d the late-night talkshow over host Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s comments on the death of slain rightwing activist Charlie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[14164,830,2160,235,441,4543,3866,3145,3895,4594],"class_list":{"0":"post-23196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-condemning","9":"tag-hollywood","10":"tag-hundreds","11":"tag-jimmy","12":"tag-kimmel","13":"tag-letter","14":"tag-open","15":"tag-sign","16":"tag-stars","17":"tag-suspension"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}