Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe said in a new interview that the expansion of tabloid journalism to traditional news operations, along with social media, has played a role in adopting a ‘hunt-to-kill attitude’ around reporting and commentary.
“We just acknowledge that this is ultra-violent in our society,” Crowe told The Hill during a Zoom question-and-answer session prior to the release of his new film, “Unhinged.” “My theory, when you talk about social media, around the ’70s, the language of tabloid newspapers began to turn into the larger national broadcasts. It began to turn into television news. It began to be part of the tomorrow of everyone when they woke up .The extreme reactions and us talking about what a particular event happened in such extreme ways. And that tabloid hunt-to-slaughter attitude when they believe they have found someone who has a offer has done-without indicating sin. And then that inability of the same tabloid language to excuse that person when they say, ‘Oh dear, we have the wrong purpose.’ “
“That kind of language has come up in social media, where people feel a need to have this very angry reaction right away,” the 56-year-old actor said. “Or they think the way to solve this problem is by having the cleanest, zappiest, zingy-est putdown that deconstructs someone else’s image of themselves. And all of this takes us nowhere right.”
“The problem is actually the argument itself,” Crowe added. “The fact that we feel the need to have such a strong opinion about things, when we actually break it down, we are an opinion about something that has already been told to us as a biased opinion.”
“Unhinged” will hit U.S. theaters on August 21, marking Hollywood’s first theatrical release since the coronavirus pandemic closed in March.
The film about an unstable man driven to the brink by anger gets in the way comes in a year when Americans are more angry than ever before, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this summer. Overall, 71 percent of U.S. adults said they were angry about the state of the country, while 66 percent were scared.
A 2018 study by Pew, meanwhile, found that people have difficulty telling the difference between fact and opinion. Those who participated in the Pew study received five statements, including “Social Security spending, Medicare and Medicaid make up the bulk of the US federal budget,” and five advisory statements, including “Democracy is the largest form of government. ” Just 26 percent of the adults surveyed identified all five factual statements correctly as factual, according to the study.
“Unhinged” comes as U.S. cinema chains suffered unusual losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, with AMC reporting a loss of $ 561 million in the second quarter.
Enthusiasm for fresh content is still strong, however, according to AMC CEO Adam Aron, who last week responded at a conference call that he was optimistic about his company and the sector “for the long term.”
A recent poll of U.S. filmmakers by U.S. digital ticketing platform Atom Tickets found that 77 percent of respondents said they were willing to go back to theaters once they reopened, with only 1 percent saying they never did. plan to return to theaters.
Crowe, considered one of the best actors of his generation, has been nominated for Best Actor Oscar three times and won the award in 2000 for “Gladiator.”
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