Donald Trump has claimed that Hollywood is racist in a new attack on the entertainment industry.
While speaking to press outside the White House on Friday, the president moved on from criticising big tech companies to criticising Hollywood. “Hollywood – I don’t call them the elites because I think the elites are people they go after, in many cases – but Hollywood is really terrible,” he said. “You talk about racist, Hollywood is racist. What they’re doing with the kind of movies they’re putting out, it’s actually very dangerous for our country. What Hollywood is doing is a tremendous disservice to our country.”
While Trump offered up no examples, his comments came after Universal’s forthcoming satirical thriller The Hunt found itself caught in controversy this week. The film, starring Hilary Swank, imagines a vision of America that allows elites to hunt so-called “deplorables” for sport. After shootings in California, Texas and Ohio, the studio chose to temporarily pause its advertising campaign.
The fallout has been covered in detail on Fox News, including a “special panel” assembled to discuss the film’s controversial premise. The pundit Mark Steyn referred to it as a “liberal Twitterstorm fantasy”.
Trump said: “They treat conservatives, Republicans, totally different than they treat others.” He also claimed that “all of the heads of the biggest companies” would be coming to the White House to discuss their output with him.
His comments also arrive after he launched an attack on the video game industry after last weekend’s shootings. He blamed “gruesome and grisly video games” for creating a “culture of violence”.
The president’s long-running relationship with Hollywood has seen him cameoing in Home Alone and three softcore Playboy films. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been vandalised on a number of occasions.
