“‘Do people really not understand reality vs. fiction?’”
That was Wonder Woman swooping in to defend actor and Uvalde, Texas native Matthew McConaughey, whose White House comments on responsible gun ownership and stiffer access to military-grade weapons have been undermined by some critics who counter that the star has used guns in movies multiple times.
Actually, the small-screen’s original Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, was sticking up for all entertainers, and their push into the social issues that matter most to them.
Carter tweeted this reply to a Breitbart News post — a post that was not the first to point out what some on social media say is a Hollywood double-standard over playing violent or armed characters on screen, and then stepping up the urgency for at least a partial ban on gun ownership.
McConaughey, a gun owner himself, and other notables have spoken up after the deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde, and what appears to be a muddled response by officials on the ground in the Texas town late last month. The “Dallas Buyers Club” actor also met with President Biden this week to discuss gun reforms.
The CEOS of more than 220 companies, organizations and sports teams, including Lyft LYFT, -2.92%, Levi Strauss LEVI, -1.87%, Yelp YELP, -1.48%, the Philadelphia Eagles and the San Francisco Giants, released an open letter on Thursday calling on the Senate to take “bold urgent action to address our gun violence epidemic.”
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The pushback against celebrities using their platform to get political echoed criticism lobbed at the NBA and other pro-sports personalities, who’ve been told to: “Shut up and dribble.”
The Breitbart response also brought out remarks from “Star Trek” icon George Takei who tweeted: “And I have used a deadly phaser many times on screen even though I’m a non-violent Buddhist. What’s your damn point?”
Also reacting: Showrunner and director James Gunn, known for sometimes bloody action-comedy DC and Marvel DIS, -2.70% films.
Said Gunn: “There are violent stories & video games in most every country in the world. But only in the U.S. is it harder to sell a donut than a gun. Stop conflating fictional guns in movies with common sense gun legislation.”
There have been at least 252 mass shootings through June 9 in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun-related violence in the United States dating back to 2013. That’s the same number the country saw through June 5 in 2021 — the worst year on record since the Gun Violence Archive began tracking mass shootings.
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Defenders of individual gun ownership firstly rely on the 2nd Amendment, whose interpretation was upheld (some would argue, expanded) in the more-contemporary Heller ruling. They argue armed “good guys” might reduce school shootings, or that existing regulations don’t work. Gun ownership also has a strong lobby in Washington even with many challenges in recent years.
As for Carter — who played the hero-in-hot-pants in the live-action TV series from 1975-1979 before handing the wheel to Gal Gadot for the big-screen version — she’s found extra social-media power with recent hot-button issues.
Carter lassoed both LGBTQ supporters and detractors with a tweet to kick off Pride Month on June 1. Carter was responding to resurfaced media reports that Wonder Woman writer Charles Moulton had a non-traditional relationship, in which two women, involved with each other, made a trio with Moulton. It’s sometimes known as a “throuple.”
Carter wrote, “If you want to argue that [Wonder Woman] is somehow not a queer or trans icon, then you’re not paying attention,” and referenced the many fans who have told her Wonder Woman “helped them while they were closeted.”