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Even if the Mayor of Los Angeles and the top three movie chains like the Paramount-Warner Bros merger, Mark Ruffalo does not, especially after the former studio called his criticism “antisemitic.” Earlier this week, Ruffalo criticized David Ellison and Paramount for buying Warner Bros using money from Oracle Technologies. He reshared a video in which Oracle’s executive vice chair Safra Catz said Oracle had “really profoundly scary technology” available to the Israeli military. “This is the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition,” Ruffalo wrote on Instagram Stories on August 21. “These ‘really profoundly scary technologies’ will most likely be merged into one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and one day used on you. Look how she revels in what we now have come to see as a genocide, which was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
Paramount quickly responded, telling Deadline, “We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” said a spokesperson. “Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”
Ruffalo did not let Paramount have the final word. On the morning of August 22, he denied the accusations, reiterating his original point. “The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” he wrote on X. “Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.” He added, “The $111 billion deal would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign money whose influence on editorial decisions has never been fully explained to the public.”
This Monday, Paramount and the state of California will meet to discuss settlement options regarding the state’s antitrust lawsuit against the studio.
The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue…
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