Actress Sharon Stone offered a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump and his supporters earlier this week while appearing at an Italian film festival.
Stone, asked for her thoughts on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, launched into a two-minute screed that has won her scores of new enemies back in the States.
“My country is in the midst of adolescence,” said the star of such films as “Basic Instinct” and “Casino.” “Adolescence is very arrogant. Adolescence thinks it knows everything. Adolescence is naive and ignorant and arrogant. And we are in our ignorant, arrogant adolescence.”
“We haven’t seen this before in our country,” Stone continued. “So Americans who don’t travel, who 80 percent don’t have a passport, who are uneducated, are in their extraordinary naivete. What I would say is that the only way that we can help with these issues is to help each other.”
Reaction to Stone’s comments were largely negative, with X users — particularly those who voted for Trump — saying her take only reinforced the stereotype of out-of-touch Hollywood elites.
“WOKE & intellectually immature actress Sharon Stone, who’s only known for what amounts to soft porn films, calls 80% of Americans stupid & naive because they “don’t have a passport and are not well traveled,” said one “X” user.
“Sharon Stone waxes philosophical, and the results are about what we would expect. Call this a basic instinct, but I’m confident no one, and I mean no one, is interested in what’s between Sharon Stone’s ears!” said far-right filmmaker, felon and author Dinesh D’Souza.
Stone, a sex symbol of the 1990s, was joined on the panel at the Torino Film Festival by actor Alec Baldwin, whose, while perhaps a bit more nuanced, was just as unpopular back home.
“There is a gap, if you will, in information for Americans,” Baldwin said, according to Mediaite.
“Americans are very uninformed about reality, what’s really going on — with climate change, Ukraine, Israel, you name it, all the biggest topics in the world. Americans have an appetite for a little bit of information,” he said at the festival, which was honoring him for his work in the 1990 film, “The Hunt for Red October.”
Baldwin said the film industry can fill that gap.
“Now is probably one of the most important times in our history for us to make films that will teach people about what reality is around the world,” he said.
Though he may not be the best messenger — manslaughter charges against him in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins were recently dismissed — Baldwin has a point.
On Election Day, for instance, Google searches for “Did Joe Biden drop out?” saw a pronounced spike, particularly in urban areas and battleground states such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Biden, of course, ceded the Democratic nomination to Kamala Harris on July 21 in what was perhaps the most covered event of the summer.
Predictably, X users pounced on Baldwin’s recent struggles.
“Alec Baldwin says, ‘Americans are really uninformed about reality,'” said one. “Alec Baldwin shot and killed a woman… and in his privileged reality, he didn’t have to serve any jail time for that.”
Many commenters on the platform proposed a boycott of the two actors.
“WATCH: Hollywood actors like Sharon Stone and Alec Baldwin now say #DonaldTrump voters are “ignorant and stupid” for voting for him,” remarked one Trump fan. “Stop giving money to people who hate you.”
Stone went on to blast male Trump supporters, implying many are “not good men.”
“And we can’t continue to pretend that your friends are good men when they’re not good men,” she said. “And you must be very clear-minded and understand that your friends who are not good men are dangerous, violent men.”
“And you have to keep them away from your daughters, your wives, and your girlfriends because this is the time when we can no longer look away when bad men are bad,” Stone continued.
Speaking later on the film festival red carpet, the actress was asked if she might leave the United States.
“I’m certainly considering a house here, and I think that’s an intelligent construct at this time…when we see Presidential candidates whose platform is hate,” said Stone, apparently unaware that, in 2022, Italians elected far-right leader Giorgia Meloni as the country’s first female prime minister.
The BBC said Meloni formed Italy’s most right-wing government since Benito Mussolini during World War II.
