Awards shows are indefensibly some of the most insufferable broadcasts on all of television.
There is nothing worse than overly congratulatory self-important multimillionaires patting each other and themselves on the back in front of millions of people watching at home.
And while the Golden Globes and Academy Awards have largely been anti-President Trump, it finally hit Broadway at the Tony Awards when this A-list actor blasted him for a ridiculous reason.
Unless you frequent Broadway on an annual basis then you’d probably have no clue what the plays celebrated at the Tony Awards are about, unless it’s a revival of an old musical like “Oklahoma” or adaptations of popular books or movies like “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Network.” These three were nominees this year.
The plot follows a deranged disgruntled anchor who announces he’s going to commit suicide on the air and in the midst of high ratings, reveals how the media sensationalizes the news for its own profit. Even if you haven’t seen it, you might’ve heard the film’s most famous line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”
You can probably guess where this is going by now.
Cranston won Best Actor on Sunday night and didn’t hold back about the how the plot of the play pertains to what’s going on today – specifically criticizing how Trump lambastes the media on Twitter in the face of the fake news epidemic.
The “Breaking Bad” star opened his speech by joking, “Finally! A straight old white man gets a break!”
Cranston continued to thank the cast, crew and his wife.
Then it got political.
The 63-year-old closed his acceptance speech by saying, “I would like to dedicate this to all the real journalists around the world both in the … print media and also broadcast media who actually are in the line of fire with their pursuit of the truth. The media is not the enemy of the people. Demagoguery is the enemy of the people.”
Now, it’s important to note that he never mentions President Trump by name in his speech but Cranston was undeniably attacking him. He frequently calls out fake news on Twitter and has referenced biased journalists with unnamed sources as being an enemy of the people.
In fact, on Monday morning Trump wrote, “When will the Failing New York Times admit that their front page story on the the new Mexico deal at the Border is a FRAUD and nothing more than a badly reported “hit job” on me, something that has been going on since the first day I announced for the presidency! Sick Journalism.”
Cranston’s defense of the “real” journalists aligns directly with the theme of the play.
After the award ceremony, speaking to reporters, Cranston added, “If that message keeps getting propagated over and over and over again, sometimes it starts to seep in. The perception of the truth is often more important than the truth. Because if people believe it, it doesn’t matter really if it’s true or not. So, the opposite message has to be continued to put out there.”
The irony here is that although it’s obvious Cranston meant the aforementioned quote to be critical of how the White House “propagates” the president’s message, but his message also, probably unintentionally, works against fake news journalists too.
