The Chilling Silence of Hollywood's New McCarthyism
Gaslit Nation
Gaslit Nation
4.7 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Despite holding one of the most powerful microphones in the world, the silence from major winners at the Oscars regarding human rights and the rise of fascism was the real star.
When artists like Paul Thomas Anderson, whose film One Battle After Another swept the awards, refuse to use their power to address the very real injustices their films capitalize on, they "obey in advance." This silence is the symptom of massive corporate media consolidation. Director David Borenstein, winner of best documentary for Mr. Nobody Against Putin, used his power morally to remind us that this is how Putin cemented a dictatorship.
With the looming merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and the MAGA Ellison family's Paramount Skydance, we face a future where 40% of our media is controlled by a single far-right family. If you want to know what that might look like, see what Barri Weiss is doing to CBS.
See you at the Gaslit Nation Salon today at 4 PM ET. The Zoom link is live on Patreon.com/Gaslit, where you can also catch the recording of last week's session. Whether you need to vent, share best practices, or just find community, our weekly resilience gatherings are here for you. Join the movement and support the show at Patreon.com/Gaslit–we couldn't do this without you.
Use the scripts below to contact Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta of California to demand they enforce existing laws to investigate, slow-down, and block the Warner Bros. deal–or there won't be anymore films like Sinners and One Battle After Another, supporting California's economy.
To Governor Gavin Newsom:
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Phone: (916) 445-2841 | Email: https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/
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Socials: @GavinNewsom
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Script: My name is [Name] from [City]. I am calling to urge Governor Newsom to publicly oppose the Ellison takeover of Warner Bros. This merger threatens jobs and creates a dangerous media monopoly. Governor, please use your influence to protect our creative economy and information space from MAGA-aligned consolidation.
To Attorney General Rob Bonta:
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Phone: (916) 210-6276 | Email: https://oag.ca.gov/contact/general-contact-form Socials: @AGRobBonta
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Script: Attorney General Bonta, Use your power to open an immediate antitrust investigation into the Warner Bros. and Paramount Skydance merger. We need you to enforce state anti-monopoly laws to prevent a single entity from controlling nearly half of our news and entertainment. Protect our markets and our speech.
Join us at the Mrs. Orwell book launch on April 13 at PowerHouse Books Arena in DUMBO. Patreon supporters at the Truth-teller level or higher get in free: https://powerhousearena.com/events/book-launch-mrs-orwell-by-andrea-chalupa-in-conversation-with-nomiki-konst/
Show Notes:
Elon Musk got $1 billion from Larry Ellison for his Twitter takeover https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/5/23058295/elon-musk-twitter-funding-qatar-larry-ellison
Merger Madness and How to Stop It https://www.freepress.net/blog/how-to-stop-warner-bros-discovery-merger
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you to the Academy. Thank you to our family. Thank you to our friends. |
| 0:05.0 | And thank you to the other documentary nominees who have become such good friends of ours. |
| 0:09.0 | Mr. Nobody Against Putin is about how you lose your country. |
| 0:14.0 | And what we saw when working with this footage, it's that you lose it through countless small little acts of complicity. |
| 0:22.7 | When we act complicit, when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities. |
| 0:29.1 | When we don't say anything, when the oligarchs take over the media and control how we |
| 0:35.0 | could produce it and consume it. |
| 0:51.0 | We all face a moral choice, but luckily, even a nobody is more powerful than you think. |
| 1:01.1 | The clip you just heard was filmmaker David Borenstein, the director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary. |
| 1:06.2 | And I'm sharing this clip because it's Gaslit Nation through and through, obviously, |
| 1:10.1 | but I obviously |
| 1:11.3 | want to ring the alarm about something incredibly chilling about the Oscars, one of the |
| 1:17.0 | largest watch, like one of the hottest shows on TV, people around the world watch the Oscars. |
| 1:26.0 | It is an hugely powerful platform. And the vibe I got was McCarthyism. |
| 1:33.1 | There was an obvious chill where people were afraid to say what needed to be said, which is extremely dangerous for all of us because this was a blatant abuse of power. |
| 1:42.9 | If you are an artist of any status, it is your |
| 1:46.7 | moral obligation to speak out. That is what the arts do. They give us a language. They give us |
| 1:51.5 | an energy. They give us a perspective shift. That is why arts have been fundamental to moving |
| 1:58.3 | society forward. I cannot stress that enough. Tony Morrison has a great quote |
| 2:02.2 | saying that they always go for the artist first because the artists are dangerous and a golden |
| 2:08.6 | theater full of muted artists who are there because they make a lot of money for people. |
| 2:16.4 | And the fact that they're not using that platform, |
... |
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