Actor Sam Elliott shared some misinformed, homophobic dog whistle-type comments on the Award-winning film The Power of the Dog on Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF With Marc Maron. After being very well dragged across the internet, it seems the actor has realized he made a massive goof and is trying to apologize.
“In trying to tell the guy, the WTF guy, how I felt about the film, I wasn’t very articulate about it,” Elliott started off at a panel discussion at the Deadline Contenders festival.
“I didn’t articulate it very well. I said some things that hurt people. And I feel terrible about that. The gay community has been incredible to me my entire career—and I mean my entire career, from before I got started in this town. Friends on every level, in every job description. Up until today, with my agent, my dear friend and my agent of a number of years. And I’m sorry I hurt any of those friends. And someone that I loved. And anyone else, by the words that I used.”
Elliott’s initial comments on Power of the Dog
Originally, Elliott had said of the movie,
I looked at it when I was down there in Texas doing 1883 and what really brought it home to me the other day, … there was a fucking full-page ad out in the L.A. Times and there was a review — not a review, but a clip — and it talked about the evisceration of the American myth. And I thought, “What the fuck? What the fuck?” This is the guy that’s done Westerns forever. The evisceration of the American West. They made it look like — what are all those dancers that those guys in New York that wear bowties and not much else? Remember them from back in the day?
[…]
What the fuck does this woman — she’s a brilliant director, by the way, I love her work, previous work — but what the fuck does this woman from down there, New Zealand, know about the American West? And why in the fuck does she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana and say, “This is the way it was.” That fucking rubbed me the wrong way, pal. The myth is that they were these macho men out there with the cattle. I just come from fucking Texas where I was hanging out with families, not men, but families, big, long, extended, multiple-generation families that made their living and their lives were all about being cowboys.
Elliott’s comments felt unnecessarily aggressive and mean, at best, in the way in which he both infused his comments with homophobic dog whistles and also disparaged a female director and implied that her gender and nationality stopped her from being able to direct a film. Despite what he may be saying now, he articulated himself very clearly, and I think he didn’t expect to be called out so publicly and severely.
Thankfully, director Jane Campion has been validated by becoming the third woman to win Best Director at the Academy Awards (despite being deeply cringe-worthy during her own awards tour). Hopefully, Elliott has grown from the conversations he has been having about the issues with his comments, because that is the best outcome we could hope for.
(featured image: Netflix)
