Ever since Hollywood blacklisted Roseanne Barr for her infamous tweet about Valerie Jarrett, very few actors have been brave enough to defend her in any way. That’s why it came as a huge surprise this week when Richard Schiff, who stars on “The Good Doctor,” slammed ABC for choosing to fire Barr in the midst of the scandal.
Fox News reported that Schiff, who identifies as a liberal, believes it is wrong for a person to lose their job simply for saying something that their bosses do not like.
“To me, it just gets to be a dangerous place where somebody speaks out of line, it might be what they actually believe, they might just be what trying to get attention at the moment,” Schiff explained. “And then to be banned – she [Barr] didn’t physically do anything to anybody.
“I understand the sensitivity of race issues and gender issues and all those things. And wouldn’t it be great if we all were all polite and lovely people? But we’re not,” Schiff continued. “I just think that we go to [a] dangerous territory when we start depriving the ability of people to make a living because of one thing that they said that was out of line. I find that tough.”
Schiff’s words were particularly surprising given the fact that his show is also on ABC. However, he made it clear that he is a big believer in freedom of speech and does not want to see censorship take over. Schiff thinks that ABC should have allowed “Roseanne” to remain on television, and given fans a chance to not watch the show if they were offended by Barr’s views.
“The way you regulate that in my opinion, is that if you don’t like what she says and you want to make a point of it, then don’t watch,” the actor said. “If you don’t like what she says, express it. Don’t watch her, don’t support her, don’t buy tickets to her shows, don’t buy products that advertise if she’s on TV. I think it’s a sensitive, difficult path to go down, to start banning people for tweets, it bothers me.”
Schiff lamented that these days, people get offended by everything and noted this will likely lead to some good people losing their careers.
It’s extremely refreshing to see a liberal who thinks this way! We could not agree with Schiff more. This censorship nonsense has gone way too far, and we are getting dangerously close to losing our First Amendment rights. As Americans, we should all be able to put politics aside and take a stand to protect each other’s freedom of speech!
More About:Entertainment