Shoutout to These Actors for Doing More Than Wear Pins for Palestine
I know it's lame to give celebrities credit for doing something just slightly above the bare minimum—but only a shocking few are managing even that.
Photo Credit: Getty Images (Kevin Mazur, Kevin Winter) Dirt Bag
The 77th annual Emmy Awards convened a who’s who of Hollywood and their publicists to celebrate television (aka streamers) on Sunday night. The host (Nate Bargaetze) was bad, the awards were—mostly—deserved (Adolescence, The Studio, and The Pitt cleaned house), and the political statements were…well, they exceeded a cute little pin on a lapel.
It began on the red carpet. First, Hacks‘ Megan Stalter showed up in a white T-shirt, a pair of jeans and a hobo bag emblazoned with a clear message: “CEASE FIRE!” On her Instagram story, Stalter also posted a graphic from Artists4Ceasefire, a collective of artists and advocates who’ve assembled to raise awareness™ about the ongoing atrocities in Gaza. The graphic reads: “Speak up now, Gaza is being starved.”
Then, Javier Bardem took it up a few notches. The Oscar-winning actor and Emmy nominee has long stood in solidarity with Palestinians, and it seemed every interview on the red carpet was an opportunity to keep it up. Bardem, wearing a keffiyeh with his tuxedo, told Variety‘s Marc Malkin that he was “denouncing the genocide in Gaza” and is refusing to work with anyone that justifies or supports it.
“I am talking about the IAGS, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, who study thoroughly genocide and has declared it is a genocide,” Bardem said. “That’s why we ask for a commercial and diplomatic blockade and also sanctions on Israel to stop the genocide. Free Palestine.” Bardem also spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about being one of 8,000 industry members in Film Workers For Palestine, a pro-Palestine union that seeks to divest from companies that are in any way complicit in Israel’s genocide.