Hollywood being accused of being left-wing is nothing new, and as far back as the 1940s, Ronald Reagan went after alleged communists in the film industry. As recently as last year’s US presidential election, we saw Hollywood stars lining up one by one behind Kamala Harris – and one person who is not entirely happy about this is President-elect Donald Trump.
So now he wants to change that, and has appointed what he calls Special Ambassadors via his own social media service, Truth Social. The idea is that these people will be his eyes in an allegedly very troubled Hollywood and report to Trump who will then act on the feedback. So which stars has he chosen then? Trump writes:
“It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.”
Thanks to Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone, Hollywood will allegedly reach The Golden Age (usually defined as 1927-1960) again:
“They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE! These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”
Variety contacted Mel Gibson who claimed that he had not heard anything about it beforehand and was therefore taken by surprise, but at the same time said that he would of course be there. Gibson is the youngest of the bunch at only 69 (Stallone is the middle child at 78 and Jon Voight is more or less an adult at 86) and has long had a frosty relationship with Hollywood after anti-Semitic statements.
Exactly how these somewhat aged gentlemen will affect Hollywood is somewhat unclear. Mel Gibson is the only one of them who still has a reasonably strong position in Hollywood and we will see in four years if the American film industry has returned to The Golden Age again thanks to these Special Ambassadors.
What do you think about the prospects for this to succeed?