Pedro Pascal, too good to be true?
Behind the attacks against an actor who always takes a political stand, it is not difficult to sense an orchestrated campaign to undermine his reputation. There are those who think that if everyone is miserable, their own moral misery will be a little more diluted
Just a few seconds of video footage were enough for many on social media to claim that Pedro Pascal was stalking Sarah Paulson at the Evita premiere. They said she looked uncomfortable. It didn’t matter that they explained that they’ve been friends since they were young— and I realize a friend from your youth can still cause trouble, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. It also didn’t matter that people produced dozens of videos showing their complicity over the years. It also didn’t help to argue that Paulson doesn’t seem to need digital champions to wage virtual war on her behalf. She’s someone so brave that in prudish Hollywood she not only flaunts her bisexuality but also dates a woman 30 years her senior. And she also agreed to wear the most atrocious hairstyle on television to play Marcia Clark, the prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case. She seems like a grown woman who would know how to get herself out of an awkward situation, but the FBI of social media still needed to take a stand. Perhaps because they really couldn’t care less about Paulson, they were instead looking to attack Pascal. That’s why it didn’t matter to point out that the actor tends to be very physically close, even with men; nothing eased their suspicions because it turned out those people had always seen something shady about him.
They’ve returned to the fray after images of Pascal and his Fantastic Four co-star, a very pregnant Vanessa Kirby, also showed mutual and, importantly, consensual physical contact. It might seem spontaneous, but it reeks of an orchestrated campaign. And the reason is simple: Pascal isn’t one to keep quiet, and he’s using his fame to defend the causes he believes in. He’s taken a stand against Trump’s treatment of immigrants—he himself is one—and in favor of the trans community, to which his sister Lux belongs. And he’s also criticized the genocide in Gaza; he does this because he’s a human being. After these attacks, which are usually generated by thousands of bots in remote basements, it’s not hard to sense an attempt to undermine the reputation of a guy everyone seems to adore. Of course, there are also real people who see “something shady” in the actor. I imagine they attack him because they can’t stand someone being too good. There’s no political agenda behind these critics; they just think that if everyone is miserable, their own moral misery will be a little more diluted.
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