I’m more than a little shocked tonight, and anyone who read Variety should be, too.
The Hollywood trade has given a platform to noted antisemite influencer Hasan Piker. It’s not just an interview with Tatiana Siegel. There’s also a costly photo shoot for this spewer of hate who says in the interview: “I abhor antisemitism, and I’ve spent my entire professional media career combating it. I just happen to be anti-Israel.”
Why would they do this? They let Piker call Israeli actress Gal Gadot “a dogshit actress”…who “should be banned from the Oscars.”
Piker says “I think she should be banned from the Oscars for being a dogshit actress. I think she has no business being there for the crime of what she has done to not only the DC franchise, but really any movie she’s been a part of. All jokes aside, Gal Gadot serves an important role in normalizing Israel as not a fascist ethno-state, but instead a place where a lot of beautiful women come from. And those beautiful women happen to serve in the IDF, because there’s also this weird sexualization of the forces as well that takes place, and it plays another role in normalizing Israel and its activities and actions, and whitewashing it.”
I’m repeating what Piker said in Variety just to illustrate how shocking and offensive this, and to underline how the trade — owned by Penske Media — felt no constraint about printing it. (I wonder how their Hollywood Reporter editor Maer Roshan, also Israeli, feels about that.)
Piker also claims that “Superman” director and DC Comics movies chief James Gunn made the violent fictional nation of Boravia is a stand-in for Israel. Gunn, of course, denies this vehemently.
He also goes after newly appointed CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss as “everything that I despise about access journalism brown-nosing to institutionally powerful people and a major advocate for Israel as well.”
I’d like to know what Variety’s readership thinks of Siegel’s interview, which is presented as declaration by Piker and not a criticism. Siegel, who is Jewish herself, gives no impression throughout that Piker is to be despised or what he’s saying is just pure hate. Siegel is not alone in her blame her. So is the photographer, someone named Dan Doperalski, who didn’t have any problem styling this POS and making him look a movie star.
Is this the tone the trades are going to take now? Frightening.
