Podcast superstar Joe Rogan called out Hollywood hypocrisy last week for pushing anti-gun messaging while glorifying gun violence in movies and television.
Speaking with comedian Tim Dillon on The Joe Rogan Experience, the podcaster said that Hollywood promotes “guns more than any other media on the planet.”
“Isn’t it fucking wild that Hollywood, in general, is very anti-gun, but they promote guns more than any other media on the planet?” Joe Rogan asked.
“All their best movies, whether it’s The Gray Man, or whether you’re watching The Terminal List or Mission Impossible. It’s all — ‘guns save the day.’ Guns kill aliens, guns kill werewolves, guns kill everyone. Everyone bad gets killed by guns,” he added.
The Joe Rogan Experience #1860 Tim Dillon
Alec Baldwin, Guns, and Hollywood.#JoeRogan #TimDillon #guns #AlecBaldwin #Hollywood @JRE_Clips @TimJDillon #JRE
1/2 pic.twitter.com/nLT9J6Qz7h
— Royal Hurlbert (@royal_hurlbert) August 19, 2022
Rogan said that Hollywood essentially pushes guns at every opportunity while simultaneously saying, “guns are bad and you shouldn’t have guns.”
The conversation then segued into Hollywood’s hypocrisy on climate change messaging, with Dillon noting how industry elites have gargantuan homes while flying private jets everywhere they go.
“Well, these are also the same people that live in these 20,000 square-foot homes and fly private jets, but talk endlessly about climate change. The same people,” he said.
Dillon theorized that the intense cognitive dissonance in Hollywood perhaps stems from the fact that they get paid so much money to essentially “play pretend,” which leads celebrities to see themselves “as something completely different than what other people see and your behavior as something that’s completely different.”
“They don’t view that as hypocrisy. They view it as like, ‘Yeah, guns are bad, but we can make them good,’” said Dillon.
“That’s so crazy,” responded Rogan.
“But that’s literally the way they think — ‘Guns are not good, but in our hands, they’re great because we can craft a narrative that makes them justified to have,’” continued Dillon.
The Joe Rogan Experience #1860 Tim Dillon
Alec Baldwin, Guns, and Hollywood.#JoeRogan #TimDillon #guns #AlecBaldwin #Hollywood @JRE_Clips @TimJDillon #JRE
2/2 pic.twitter.com/bqtPqlG0MW
— Royal Hurlbert (@royal_hurlbert) August 19, 2022
Breitbart News previously highlighted this cognitive dissonance of celebrity political messaging on gun violence this past June when actor Matthew McConnaughey began advocating for gun control measures despite having starred in multiple films that glorify gun violence.
“In movies and TV, McConaughey has repeatedly glamourized the use of firearms, often as a necessary problem solver—you shoot a guy, problem solved,” noted John Nolte. “McConaughey’s hypocrisy on this issue is even worse than that. After two decades of running around romanticizing guns, he stood in the White House briefing room and lectured the media about the ‘sensationalized media coverage’ of mass shootings and shooters.”
Matthew McConaughey, who delivered a passionate plea for new gun control legislation in an address at the White House briefing room on Tuesday, has used 19 guns in 11 movies over 25 years, according to the Internet Movie Firearms Database. https://t.co/HCwNisaoeJ
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) June 8, 2022
Liberal comedian Bill Maher echoed those sentiments on an episode of HBO’s Real Time.
Some Hollywood figures called for a change by signing an online petition telling the industry to be more mindful of how it portrays guns. Judd Apatow, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Shonda Rhimes, Eli Roth, and Adam McKay were some of the top signatories.
Paul Bois joined Breitbart News in the summer of 2021 after previously working as a writer for TruthRevolt and The Daily Wire. He has written thousands of news articles on a variety of topics, from current events to pop-cultural trends. Follow him on Twitter @Paulbois39
