We all know that freedom of speech is one of the most important rights we have as American citizens. Without it we wouldn’t be able to allow our beliefs to clash head-to-head on the battlefield of ideas, which means truth would be ever elusive. Not to mention we would not be able to air our grievances with the federal government, which means there would be oppression and no way to change anything for the better. And I firmly believe that we should all be allowed to say whatever the heck we want. However, the First Amendment protects us all from the government placing muzzles on us, it most certainly does not prevent us from experiencing consequences for the things we say.
This is a lesson that Melissa Barrera, who played the role of Sam Carpenter in the last two “Scream” sequels, discovered the hard way. According to Breitbart News, Barrera was booted from the recently rebooted franchise — which has made a killing at the box office, and yes, the pun was totally intended — after she got on Instagram and referred to Gaza as a “concentration camp” and accused the Jewish state of Israel of “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the current battle with Hamas as part of its retaliation for attacks the terrorist group launched on the country, killing over 1,400 people, most of whom were innocent civilians, over a month ago.
You reap what you sow.
“Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” she said in the post. “Cornering everyone together, with nowhere to go, no electricity no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
Here’s more from the report:
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter(THR), Barrera helped usher the Scream franchise into a new generation with the 2022 feature that “earned $137.7 million globally and combined generations of cast members from the franchise.”
“Barrera’s Sam Carpenter was the lead of that film, and the older sister of Jenna Ortega’s Tera. Barrera also starred in Scream VI, which was released in March and topped $168.9 million at the global box office,” added THR.
Director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day), who will be helming the new installment, released a statement in response to her firing, insisting he had nothing to do with it.
“Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make,” Landon said.
Spyglass, which is the production company making the “Scream” films, published a very stern message denouncing the comments made in Barrerra’s post.
“Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech,” a Spyglass spokesperson went on to tell Variety.
Again, there are consequences for the things we say and do. Spyglass has the right to terminate Barrera and any other actor it hires for a project for any reason they want. And that’s how it should be. They feel what she said was offensive and thus didn’t want to work with her anymore. I mean, calling Gaza a concentration camp? Really? Such an awful thing to say.
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