Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon has been dropped by a top Hollywood agency after saying frightened Jews are “getting a taste of how it feels to be Muslim in America.”
The 77-year-old actress has spent the past few weeks raging against Israel and is now under fire for her latest outburst in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, reports pagesix.com. Sources say that several staffers at the agency were extremely hurt by Sarandon’s comments. A spokesperson said the agency is no longer representing Sarandon. Sarandon, the star of hit movies including ‘Thelma & Louise’, won her Oscar for ‘Dead Man Walking’, and had been a client of the agency since 2014.
Sarandon has appeared in two movies this year, DC spin-off ‘Blue Beetle’, which was a box-office flop, and rom-com ‘Maybe I Do’, with fellow veterans Diane Keaton, Richard Gere and William H. Macy, and has three other films in post-production.
She enraged people with her comments at a pro-Palestinian protest in NYC last week. “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country,” she said.
Aviva Klompas, the former director of speechwriting at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations, wrote: “When Susan Sarandon said that Jews ‘are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country’ she was saying that American Jews have it coming — that we don’t deserve to live free from harassment and assault.”
This left not just Jews fuming, but others including Asra Nomani, a Muslim Indian American who responded to Sarandon on X, with a list of the freedoms she and her parents enjoy in the US.
Sharing a photo of herself with her parents, Nomani wrote: “Hi there Susan Sarandon, this is my mom, my dad and me on the rail trail in Morgantown, West by God Virginia. Let me tell you what it means to be Muslim in America.”
“My dad didn’t have to become a second-class indentured servant to one of the many tyrants of Muslim countries that use immigrants from India, like my family, as essential slaves…my dad got a job as an assistant professor of nutrition.”
“He got rejected first for tenure but being Muslim in America meant he got a right like everybody got — his right to appeal and guess what? He won and he became a full professor.”
“My mom? Being Muslim in America meant she got to live FREE with the wind in her hair, like Masih Alinejad fights for women in the Muslim nation of Iran to be able to enjoy.” Nomani also said she was able to give birth safely and freely to a baby out of wedlock in America — something that would have led to her death in some Muslim countries.
“This is a ‘taste’ of life for a Muslim family in America. Please don’t minimise the experience of Jewish Americans by sanitising the hell that it is for Muslims living in Muslim countries and vilifying America for the life — and freedoms — she offers Muslims like my family,” she added. (IANS)
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