I honestly thought this was a joke. As a stage director, I couldn’t believe that a Broadway show—a drama, supposedly— would stoop this low. My head has been in a continuous state of eruption since I found out the report was accurate.
George Clooney has a vanity project on Broadway, a stage adaptation of his well-received 2005 movie about Edward R. Murrow’s high stakes showdown with demagogue Joe McCarthy at the height of his power. He co-wrote the screenplay and directed while also playing a supporting role. Now, twenty years later, Clooney has moved himself into the starring role as Murrow (previously played by a better and more Murrow-like actor, David Strathairn).
The play has been getting luke-warm reviews, but none of the ones I read mentioned this little detail: At the end of the play, which is supposed to be about the importance of a courageous press that “speaks truth to power” and is trusted by the public to be fair and uncorruptible, a giant photo of Elon Musk giving the alleged “Nazi salute” is projected on the backdrop.
It was not a Nazi salute, and the Axis news media that represented it as such proved just how far the profession of journalism has fallen since the halcyon days of Edward R. Morrow. But the photo surely isn’t intended to convey that message. Clooney, or some lunatic, with Clooney’s approval, was trying to equate McCarthyism with the Trump administration, and McCarthy’s totalitarian methods with Musk. It’s such a bizarre and idiotic analogy that I can’t properly critique it because I don’t comprehend the thinking behind it. It is lizard-brain level at best, and I always thought Clooney was smarter than that. (My dog Spuds is smarter than that.)
But reports are that the Trump Deranged Broadway audiences gasp and react as if this is brilliant commentary. I would have walked out. Any decent American or responsible theater-goer should walk out.
I still am hoping this is a hoax.
Ethics Alarms 
It’s pointless to jeer and anyone who reacts negatively will be either thrown out of the place or be assumed to be booing Musk.
These folks cannot be reasoned with when it comes to Trump. There is no telling them that they are off base. They don’t believe anything the administration says, no evidence it provides, no justification it uses (even if a previous Democratic administration did the same thing) or any action intended for the benefit of the nation.
Joe McCarthy was a demagogue who made false accusations and destroyed people’s lives (by labeling them Communists). Donald Trump – and his enabler Elon Musk – makes false accusations and destroys people’s lives (like calling plucky undocumented migrants terrorists or gang members, etc).
It doesn’t matter that there were actually Communists spies in the United States. It doesn’t matter that there actually are terrorists and gang members here, either. Any way they can equate President Trump to a disreputable, discredited, dictatorial predecessor, they will.
It’s important to remember that this is a propaganda campaign.
Yes, but there’s deft and subtle propaganda and mind-blowingly stupid propaganda. This is the latter. Broadway is supposed to have higher standards. And Broadway audiences hardly need low-level anti-Trump/Musk treats. They pay absurd amounts to see good theater, and that isn’t.
This is where we are now. Subtle is out the window. Pandering Propaganda is the order of the day.
This is reminding me of the outrageous anti-Trump coda Ken burns put at the end of his “US and the Holocaust” documentary which I wrote about here…
QUOTE:
Burns, to his eternal shame—I will not watch any future Burns works—agreed to betray the trust of his viewers and the integrity of his art by using the last 10 minutes of “The US and the Holocaust” to draw an intellectually dishonest and virtually libelous analogy between the anti-Semites in Roosevelt’s State Department that blocked European Jews from escaping to the U.S. before Hitler sent them to the showers, the Nazis themselves, and those who oppose pro-illegal immigration policies in the U.S. today.
The big, not-so-subtle clue is the title of the final chapter. Each of the previous two in the chronological film are accompanied by dates. Part 3 is titled “The Homeless, Tempest-Tossed”—Ah! Just generic enough to justify making Jewish refugees the analogues of current day illegal South American immigrants. Clever!—- with the dates reading “(1942 – )” You see? The Holocaust is still ongoing here. Fascists are still determined to keep America white and Christian.
Snippets of news broadcasts and collages of images are rapidly edited together in familiar negative campaign ad style, bearing no resemblance to the pace or approach of the documentary itself. All of the images and sound bites fly by: the Charlottesville march, “white supremacy,” “authoritarian,” Roof, Donald Trump, Confederate flags, Selma, Ann Coulter talking about “The Great Replacement,” Fox News, a “Built the Wall” sign….and, of course, a “Stop the Steal” picket and the January 6 riot…. because nothing suggests the Holocaust like a mob of middle-aged morons with bear spray throwing a tantrum in the Capitol.
No, Burns was just following orders here, and allowing ruthless political hacks who couldn’t care less about his work use him for their own purposes. He is weak and a fool for allowing them to do it. But bias makes you stupid.
Then two progressive historians—there are a lot Burns could choose from—tell us that the urgent lesson of the Holocaust is that the same symptoms are exploding in the U.S. today. Democracy may be threatened.
Vote Democrat!
No, the ten minute political ad tacked on at the end didn’t come right out and state that; I would have had more respect for PBS and Burns if it had. But of course, the alliance between the media, the arts and a desperate, unprincipled political party determined to demonize its critics and opponents that Burns’ damning abuse of his platform and stature symbolizes is the real threat to democracy, and the actual reflection of fascist methodology.
Watch the whole episode here, or just skip to the last 10 minutes, when Peter Coyote’s staid, expressionless narration ends, and the Democratic Party propaganda begins.
I repeat: Disgusting.
I can’t argue with you. I’m finding more and more that I cannot read the Epilogues of most history books written since 2016 and, especially, 2021. A recent book that covered Walter White and the NAACP had to, by necessity, cover the undemocratic suppression of black Americans in the United States. A footnote at the bottom of one page made sure to point out that all but one of the offending states in a particular incident voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
I can’t tell you how many books now close with references to the Capitol riot and other Big Lies, laying racism, sexism, xenophobia at Trump’s feet. Somehow, they find a way to incorporate attacks on him.
A book I just paused finishing to write this comment (“Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America’s Soul” by A.J. Baime) repeats the well-known canard of Strom Thurmond’s Solid South turning GOP in nearly all elections since 1948, save for 1976, and makes sure to include which of those states voted for Trump in 2016.
I’m telling you that it’s a relentless propaganda campaign.
This relentless, juvenile sort of behavior warrants yet another “What is wrong with these people?”
I made the mistake of clicking on one of those Buzzfeed articles (but isn’t that always a mistake) of tell-tale signs someone is pretending to be rich.
The last example came with an interesting choice by Buzzfeed for the accompanying picture.
“24. And finally, “Everything decorated with gold. It’s just tacky and shows a lack of style and class.””
Not sure where the photo went but it was a picture of Trump…in the White House…with gold decorations behind him on the walls and mantleplace.