Not even in the slightest bit.
Chris Pratt is currently in the middle of… actually, it looks like he made it through, a fit of cancel culture nonsense. I described in another answer what caused Pratt’s current headaches, that I’ll run through here.
What did he do? Literally nothing.
This began with a tweet by documentary producer Amy Berg. She asks the question, innocent enough, of the four famous Chrises of the Marvel Universe and asks her followers which should go. I say innocent, because making an internet poll isn’t really a big deal, but Amy Berg got her fame from making documentaries highly critical of the Catholic church around various pedophila scandals (silent now that Hollywood is doing all it can to divert that light on child rape away from itself). Whatever the case, her following includes a lot of people who are devout followers of the left and hate anything approaching Christianity.
So Amy Berg didn’t really do much wrong, as far as I know, but the toxic following she created did the rest. They responded with attacks specifically against Chris Pratt, that he needs to be cancelled (for no freaking reason) other than that he, as one tweet said, “radiates homophobic white christian supremacist energy.”
But the firestorm happened after he did two things: First, he poked fun of other celebrities urging fans to vote:
Sharing a movie poster of his animated film Onward on Instagram on Oct. 2, the father of two wrote in the caption, "With all that’s going on in the world it is more important than ever that you vote. Just ask any celebrity."[1]
Then Pratt failed to attend what seemed to be a mandatory gathering of Avengers alumni called the “Voters Assemble: The Cast of The Avengers Unite for Democracy.” Basically, many Avengers went to a pro-Biden fundraising and “awareness” event, pooling their collective billion or so social media followers into making sure that America democracied hard. In reality, only about half the Avengers were there, but Chris needs to be punished for the faux pas.
As if that wasn’t gross enough, Pratt is being attacked for… nothing. He did nothing at all. He goes to church, a church that is far from Christian fundamentalist or evangelical, one that is basically just famous Christians meditating to Christian Rock, and he’s well liked in Hollywood. But he’s also white and male, which I guess is enough strikes against him. Now, since he radiates that homophobic white Christian supremacist energy, hasn’t crusaded for Biden yet, so of course, he needs to be cancelled.
So other MCU actors like Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo defended Chris on his character and how well he is liked and treats people, coworkers and fans alike.
But just calling out the toxicity of fans wasn’t good enough. They shouldn’t have defended Chris Pratt because they didn’t defend Brie Larson in the same way.
Not so fast.
Pratt’s crimes against the mob were thus:
Too white.
Too male.
Too Christian.
Not enough of a Democrat.
That’s not exactly a strong base for the attacks he received.
Brie Larson, however, was criticized for other things, things that warranted criticism.
When she came out, her attitude towards her fellow cast members was rude and disrespectful, acting as if people who built this universe she profits from just to hand it over to her were the old news and she was the greatest thing to happen to the MCU ever. Uncomfortable interviews pointed to problems others seemed to have with her off camera. And the way that she presented her character, as the end-all be all of the Marvel universe, alienated fans of literally anyone else. The plot itself plays with the idea of competition between the Avengers in a fun way, but nothing about her was fun.
Finally, and this really isn’t her fault, but her character and story were not great. They were Mary Sue wish fulfillment fantasies to try to get women into the MCU. The movie followed the standard MCU formula for a new hero, but lacking the all important development of character. No, she just kneed the bad guy in the face and was, because reasons, the most powerful being in the universe. But she couldn’t make it to defeat Thanos because she had better things to do than stopping Universe wide genocidal maniacs. Why? Reasons.
Brie Larson was a trainwreck of things you shouldn’t do, including alienating your coworkers, alienating your fans, and being the victim of less than stellar storytelling. Did she deserve all the hate from the internet? No. No one usually does. But she made choices that brought about her reasonable negative reputation by the fan base.
And this isn’t a guy/girl thing.
Scarlett Johansson has been beloved, mostly because she doesn’t act this way. Her character has (finally) been developed, but even without that, she was an amazing character who hung with literal gods — with no superpowers. Just a catsuit. But Scarlett’s behaviour off camera, to the other stars and the fans, mirrored that of the Robert Downey Jr.’s and the Chris Evans’. She was respectful and acted as if she was grateful for her fame.
And skipping over outside of MCU, Gal Gadot is beloved by fans, as well. Not a lot of people knew her before Wonder Woman, but that was a really well made movie. It had a story that made perfect sense with her ability and best of all, she didn’t run around after it bragging about how she was the best thing to happen to comic books since color ink. And actually, she was liked enough, as a person and a character, that she was carrying the DC universe for a while following the duel metastasized cancers of Batfleck and Jared Leto.
Literally the worst thing she’s done was that Imagine video at the start of the plague. It was cringy and tone deaf, but… okay… look, she tried to do something nice and we can’t really fault her for that.
Oh, but wait, apparently she’s being cancelled because… wow… she’s too white?
So, it seems that people are attacking her for being too white to play the role of Cleopatra, and that is leaking over into anti-semitic attacks against her. Shocker internet. I’m just saying, when does the internet get to get cancelled, because this is kind of gross? Hopefully people are getting schooled about the Ptolemaic dynasty following the brief conquest of Alexander the Great (short story, Cleopatra was Greek. Deal with it. Read books.)
And that segues back to Chris Pratt. He did nothing wrong.
A tweet, started by someone who has her own biases issues which is displayed in the openly toxic bigotry of her fans, attacked someone not for doing anything, but for things that you’re not supposed to attack people for — his skin color, what’s between his legs, and his religion.
But his skin color is white, his gender is male, and he’s a Christian, so it’s open season because reasons. All that, and not being Democrat enough.
At some point, the comparisons between why he should have been defended versus why Brie Larson deserved what she got fall apart and then the internet just kept going with “the Israeli is too white”. Basically, you can’t be hateful to others who make your life so luxurious and expect to be rewarded for it. But when you’re a great person who shows genuine character, others will reward you with praise against those who set themselves as your enemies. Pratt has done that. Brie did not.
Thanks for Reading
Picture Source Wikipedia
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