Jane Fonda has released a statement in support of Mark Ruffalo after Paramount slammed the four-time Oscar nominee as “antisemitic” for a recent post denouncing Larry Ellison’s ties to Israel and David Ellison’s planned merger with Warner Bros.
“Especially as a Jewish American, I find it deeply troubling to see false accusations of antisemitism used to silence legitimate political criticism in this country,” Fonda wrote in a statement shared to the Committee for the 1st Amendment Instagram. “Antisemitism is real and dangerous, which is precisely why the charge should never be used as a cudgel against people whose political views you dislike, in this case as dedicated a crusader for democracy as Mark, whom we are proud to have as a Committee member and to be in this fight with us.”
“Mark Ruffalo has a First Amendment right to speak out about politics, powerful corporations and this dangerous merger — full stop,” she added. “Calling his criticism antisemitic is a smear to delegitimize criticism of the merger and to distract from the question Paramount would rather not answer: Should one company be allowed to accumulate this much power over our movies, television and news?”
On Friday, Ruffalo shared a clip to Instagram in which Paramount board member Safra Catz discussed “profoundly scary technologies” that tech giant Oracle shared with the Israeli military after the Oct. 7 terror attack. Oracle was co-founded by Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison. Ruffalo went on to liken Larry Ellison to a “classic oligarch” and warned of what would happen if Paramount and Warner Bros. were allowed to merge.
In response, a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement that the company is “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. 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.”
Fonda is not the first to stand up for Ruffalo. “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder wrote on her Instagram Story Monday night, “I’m so grateful that Mark Ruffalo drew a connection between the Ellisons providing military technology to Israel during a genocide and their unprecedented media takeover — and pointed out that this is a dangerous consolidation of power that could ultimately be used against us.”
“The idea that he only said these things because the Ellisons are Jewish is LUDICROUS,” she continued. “Is it also antisemitic to point out that Safra Catz, the Oracle executive vice chair who boasted about the ‘profoundly scary technology’ provided to the IDF, also sits on Paramount’s board? Or that Larry Ellison has been buying favor with Trump by donating tens of millions to his political effort for years? Or that he once offered Netanyahu a lucrative Oracle post?”
