Andrew Garfield is considered American and British, did you know that? He was born in LA and raised in England, thus his posh British accent (although he can also do a perfect American accent). His mother is British and his dad is American. I believe that means he gets to vote in both America and the UK, right? Why not? And it means that he closely follows politics in both the UK and US. And let me tell you… Anglo-American politics have been no fun in the past year. Some might even say that 2016 was the year of the apocalypse. Anyway, during the course of Andrew’s promotional tour for Silence and Hacksaw Ridge, he sat down with NY Magazine’s Vulture podcast and the conversation kept coming back to politics. Andrew had a lot of interesting stuff to say – you can read the whole piece here. Some highlights:
How he took a crash-course in the seminary for ‘Silence’: “There’s not many quiet places left on planet Earth, and it’s a vital thing that we all [need], especially now as we move into this new year. Especially moving into this in England with Brexit, and the man who shall remain nameless taking over this country. There’s a real need to look inward and identify what we’re all meant to do as individuals in order to keep the world turning in the way that it’s meant to turn. I guess what I’m saying is, [we should be] evolving and progressing toward a greater understanding of our need for one another and what it means to live a life of soul and a life of meaning, because our president-elect is not a soul man as far as I can see.
How poor people vote against their own interests: “I have a longing to understand. I have a longing to fully, deeply listen and not to dismiss. I think there’s lots of dismissing going on, there’s lots of ignorance going on, on both sides of the argument… So I have no idea, but I’m desperate to understand. I’m desperate to understand how these men and women have voted so against their own interests and how easy it has been to manipulate a very disenfranchised portion of the population. You watch Kellyanne Goebbels — sorry, I mean Kellyanne Conway — on Seth Meyers, and you go, “Oh my goodness, how can you not see that it’s all a ruse and a game and she’s pointing to herself going, ‘I’m lying to you! I’m pivoting here! I’m full off sh-t and enabling evil, ha ha ha!'” It’s shocking that we are in a post-truth world and everything has become meaningless, in a way. I guess I’m heartened because that means that everything is going to become very meaningful as a response. It has to be — that’s just the way it goes. That’s cause and effect, I believe.
On Meryl Streep’s Globes speech: “It was stunning, it was riveting. It was gorgeous. You could hear a pin drop. She said everything so succinctly and with such passion and sincerity. The show should have ended! That should have been the last thing said…. I don’t know whether there is an obligation to speak in that way, and I think everyone will come to the party with their own dish; it just so happens that Meryl Streep is incredibly engaged and cares so deeply about humanity that she took the opportunity to talk about our responsibility to each other and to highlight a lack of humanity that is occurring in our country, a lack of humanity that is being given permission by the man who is about to inhabit the top seat of power in this country. She said it with such elegance and grace — and I believe it was inarguable, what she was saying. Totally inarguable. The fact that then the man she was referencing came out with these slurs and this empty, empty response, the feeling that he had to have some kind of response, is just ugliness.
Baby Fists is ‘This Sick Man’: “We all, I’m sure, have seen Obama’s farewell speech, his final address, which was so full of grace and love and warmth. And then you switch on the television and you see this sick man. The contrast! The sickness, the toxicity, that is emanating out of his every pore — energetically, you can just feel it, I believe, if your eyes and ears are open. It’s shocking. I’m grateful for people like Meryl Streep. She gives our profession a very, very good name because she’s focused on the things that are meaningful. She’s not trying to win votes, she’s not trying to make money or win endorsements or be popular, she’s just trying to speak the truth.
I love the “Kellyanne Goebbels” reference because I just cannot with that woman and her constant bulls—t. It pisses me off that we’re supposed to treat her as a reasonable person, or that we’re supposed to treat her nonsense arguments with any legitimacy. It seems like Andrew is falling more on the side of “people vote against their own interests because they’re ill-informed, because of Trump’s propaganda machine” side of things. I still don’t believe that completely. Did Baby Fists court the so-called “low information voters,” i.e. the stupid people? Of course. But it’s a lot bigger than that and it’s a lot worse than that.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Let me be the first to say… .well done Andrew, spot on. Such a depressing day.
I think this might be the first time Garfields stock is higher than McAvoys on CB
Yes. And there are other/bigger factors in play but I’m not sure if it’s realistic to expect him to cover them all in a single interview. I think his take on our national nightmare is pretty accurate. And like you said, extremely depressing. Trump truly exudes toxicity, I feel like I’ve been able to see that for decades, which is why it surprised me every step of the way as his campaign continued to succeed.
I know Trump will find time to tweet how Andrew sucked as superman taking a moment from his busy shedule of attacking Meryl Streep. I also think that when Andrew says that people vote against their interests he does not mean that they were badly informed rather that a lot of people feel desperate, left out and not heard (hence he refers to urge to listen and not judge) and they jumped at a chance to vote for policy outsider. While the statement that Trump is an outsider is kind of funny to me but he was never in the government and that may have done the trick. The desperate people who think that politicians never have their interests at heart will vote and their vote is a vote of protest, not a vote for someone but against someone (and isn’ t Hillary the best fillong the profile of political elite that needs to be pubished) even of they know the person who they vote for will not do much for them either.
Love you Andrew, love you. Will be watching all your films from now on. A very thoughtful young man. Your parents must be very proud.
The worst day in the history of all of humanity is today.
R.I.P. United States of America
July 4, 1776 — January 20, 2017
(cause of death: suicide)
Oh god this is melodramatic yet completely true. I hate today and saying goodbye to Obama yesterday was sickening.
Something occurred to me last night, and it was awful. Maybe Trump will just become an empty vessel and Pence, Ryan et al will run the show. That’s what Trump did with his hotels after all. Became the salesman/mouthpiece while others did the work. And maybe this will just be Bush 3.0. Trump will be kept happy since they let him rally the crowds and relish his “reign” and the right wing will create more poverty for most, wealth for a few and let the masses get meaner and more racist and sexist. At least it will keep Trump pacified so he won’t blow us up……
@ALIX
This 1000 x’s
I had a slight bit of brain activity reading Garfield talking about voting against one’s own interests. Amazing, I know. But I think, if we are using low information voter as a euphemism for racist working class white voter*, which these days I think we are, then I think the problem is organisation. Unions, the traditional organising body for this demographic, have had their activities restricted legally over the past decades and they have lost influence and power. But other disenfranchised groups have continued to organise and to work for their own communities and this spreads knowledge. So perhaps that’s it. (I’m assuming decline of union power is the same or similar stateside as it is here in the UK.)
* still not persuaded that most of the blame should go to these people, however. The high information and comfortably off people who helped do this to us seem to be escaping all blame.
I haven’t paid much attention to Garfield, but I quite like what he has to say here.
Unions are being weakened and demonized here. Republicans target the unions that represent government workers and accuse them of being the reason taxes are high. “Well, if the previous administration hadn’t kowtowed to the state workers unions, we wouldn’t have this budget crisis.” They point to unions in the private sector as the reason why companies leave. “If they didn’t have to contend with unfair union demands, they would keep the jobs here.” There is a “right-to-work” movement that has infected 27 states, and goes quite a bit further than the “you don’t have to join the union, if you don’t want to” philosophy that it spouts. Republicans want to push this through federally. I find the information on the “Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation”‘s website extremely misleading. All the information is about the employee’s right to be free of the union. But nothing deals with the employee’s rights when it comes to the employer and basically, the employee has no rights when it comes to bargaining with the employer about salary, benefits, or discipline. And this organization claims that Right to Work states have a higher standard of living than non-right to Work states, which I really cannot believe that Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have higher standards of living than Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York or California. In fact, I’m pretty sure they don’t.
And I’m liking Andrew.
We’ve seen union-weakening legislation progressing ever since Thatcher here. I do think it has hindered information flow and organising capacity to those groups. It may be a contributing factor in being a so-called low information voter?
If so, it’s a shame because we only win through solidarity.
I think it is very much a contributing factor and I agree that we only win through solidarity. I practice labor law, although most of my cases lately have been falling into the employment discrimination defense category, I do negotiate contracts with unions and I do handle cases at arbitration and labor relations and labor cases in the appeals courts. I much prefer working with the unions than the individual employees or the individual employee’s lawyer. The unions must follow rules. They know the rules. They follow them for the most part. There are laws governing their contracts. They follow them for the most part. Where the conflicts arise is when management and the union interpret the rules differently but all that can be and is negotiated. And by law, the unions must represent even the bad employee or the bad employee can sue them. I’ve sat in meetings where the union guys have said right out that they know the employee is a problem but by law they must represent and I’ve also had them tell me that they’ve decided they’ve taken a case as far as they need to protect themselves legally and they’re willing to assume the risk of not representing the bad employee any further. My point is, they have to follow rules and we work within those rules. The individual employees don’t know the rules or they don’t follow the rules and the employers don’t either and it is really easy for exploitation but also frivolous lawsuits. I have had far too many cases of employees screaming discrimination when things didn’t go their way. I”m handling a case right now in which the judge looked at the guy and said: “So, you’re a middle aged white guy who is being discriminated against for being a middle-aged white guy by a bunch of middle-aged white guys? You’re going to need to give me something more than that.” And he has appealed her denial of his case.
That is really interesting!
Atomisation is no good for any of us, is it?
@Sixer, not at all. One of my great uncles was a union organizer. At his funeral, multiple people talked about how they had been arrested with him for trying to organize workplaces. He was willing to go to jail to help others get fair working conditions. It frightens me that we are heading back to the days when such actions are necessary
You should pay more attention to Actors like Garfield. And less to actors like Legs 😉 and cumbebatch ( that goes for the whole of celebitchy) .
Garfield isn’t afraid to speak his mind or offend people, hes well informed,, and quite frankly he’s a better actor than legs.
I’ve seen Spiderman! I thought he was ok but I don’t like superhero films. To be honest, he’s always just been yet another British poshie loved by Americans to me and not particularly fanciable, so I’ve never taken much notice. I’ve never thought LEGS was a stellar actor either, as I have said many times. LEGS’s appeal is a) his legs and b) the fertile ground he provides for mockery. But I will pay a bit more attention to Garfield now, if he’s going to say actually sensible things.
Hardly anybody I consider to be a stellar actor gets written about here. Cos it’s gossip, not acting. And besides, it’s no fun mocking good acting!
I’ve always paid attention to Garfield since Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. . I don’t pay attention to the giant prat Cumberbatch.
It’s not that hard to understand. Poor white Christian men would rather remain poor than admit that blacks, hispanics, Jews, gays, women, Muslims, etc., are every bit as deserving of equality and justice and power as they are. And white women know their secondary status hinges on white men remaining in power. Poor whites are bitter and believe the bull that the only thing standing between themselves and success is undocumented workers, welfare queens, and affirmative action.
Said it better than I could.
Perfectly said.
“Poor whites are bitter and believe the bull that the only thing standing between themselves and success is undocumented workers, welfare queens, and affirmative action.”
True but I’d also add that relatively affluent whites are extremely resentful of and bitter about these societal aspects as well. They see them as somehow eroding or diminishing their “hard work” and very existence.
I agree Esmom. I was just commenting as too why poor people would vote against their own interest. The rich voting republican makes more sense. Until the poor people eventually revolt and the guillotines come out. Then they’ll wish they had shared a little.
That’s exactly it. They would rather be poor then dismantle a system that favors them and be at a higher level (but equal). Ie they want to keep white supremacy alive and well.
For decades now, we have had the Limbaughs and Gingrichs and Reagan disciples pitting working class people against one another and all of them against the poor in order to keep the affluent and wealthy where they are.
It’s been far longer than a few decades. Howard Zinn does a good job explaining how the first africans came here as indentured servants. They and the white servants shared a natural affiliation, and in order to stop the blacks and whites from conspiring together the masters devised a conscious plan to elevate the whites just enough to get them to despise and shun any contact with the blacks. The blacks condition gradually changed to outright chattel and the whites accepted their terrible, but not quite as bad in comparison, condition.
Agree. Most of them will tell you they’re not racist, though!
I am so heartsick today. But reading Andrew’s very elegant words about the current state of the world, and the message that in the end love, truth and positivity will always win over evil is something I needed to hear. On that note — I am thankful today for this community of like minds (and for Celebitchy being the only political coverage I can stand beside BBC Radio 4 right now!).
It’s Mourning in America.
Today we pause in despair,disbelief.
Tomorrow we rise to fight!!!
Yes dual nationality he can vote in both places.. I need to walk and avoid most media from 230p UK onwards..
He comes across incredibly well-spoken and informed in this interview. I really agree with him.
+1
I know there’s not a lot of love for Spidey Number 2 here, but I am very fond of him. He’s talented, nerd-cute, has great taste in gfs and, of course, enough brain cells to rub against each other (that sounds terrible haha).
Andrew was brilliant in The Social Network.
I agree with Andrew’s comment about how we should be trying to understand the people who would vote against their own interests. That is one aspect I don’t understand from this past election. Everyone else voted for their interests whether it be racist or misogynistic interests, they voted in line with that and got what they wanted.
He is a credit to his profession.
Cheers, Andrew.
I’m starting to get this sickening feeling of dread lately-I see more and more “we didn’t take these people seriously” and “we ignored the feelings of Trump’s supporters,” a slight admonishment to people like us. I didn’t support out and out racism? I didn’t support fearmongering and encouraged hate of immigrants and foreign citizens? I don’t know where we’re headed. People keep saying “we’ve survived worse, I refuse to give up hope,” but it’s been so hard.
In any case, I’m thankful for people who use a public platform like Andrew to shoot this logic down. I refuse to give in my beliefs and it’s heartening to hear someone in the spotlight say the same.
@Jen, spot on
That was a great interview! 👍🏽
Everything he said was perfect! I’m keeping my word and I’m dressed in all black and will not turn the tv onto the inauguration. This is an awful day
WELL DONE, Mr. Garfield!
I didn’t care much about him before, but this interview has made me look him in different light. Very good answers Andrew! 👏🏼
Says the dude promoting a Mel Gibson movie?
I like his comments on KA Conway. That woman makes my blood boil. She doesnt even try to lie properly and people believe her anyway.
I refuse to mention his name, post on social media about him, I will live in a bubble, until he is impeached and or ousted…. I remember the bush son days and actively having things affect me like every turn: healthcare being temporarily kicked off of my mom’s insurance only to be placed back on when obama got in power, the red yellow orange alerts for terrorist scares and being let home late because schools were on alert (one word RIDICULOUS), seeing my friends go to a crappy war worth nothing, the recession and high interest rates, credit freeze (student loans were being stingy and thus my friends and I struggled to pay school each semester/year) and housing crash and no damn jobs (further pushing back kick starting adulthood than in past generations)….. so I will survive (the unspeakable) and refuse to acknowledge nor respect his presidency.