Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s (R) growing list of cultural grievances includes what he says are Hollywood’s too-politically-correct casting decisions.
McDaniel, who is mounting a primary challenge to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), argued in 2006 that Hollywood goes out of its way to cast white men instead of Muslims in villainous roles.
The Senate hopeful made the comments in an episode of the radio program he hosted before running for office, “Right Side Radio.” Mother Jones on Tuesday surfaced the comments from local politics blog Dark Horse Mississippi.
“It’s funny how the movies have portrayed themselves lately and how the video games have portrayed themselves lately,” McDaniel said in a segment on race. “There’s one person that cannot be a villain in Hollywood, ever. One group that cannot be villains. Who is that? [Cohost: The Muslims.] Yeah, isn’t that neat? They’ll go out of their way to find some Russian white guy that’s just nuts, and he’s the terrorist, which I’ve never seen that. But the Muslims, they’ve just disappeared from Hollywood’s radar.”
McDaniel’s cohost then suggested that viewers were “up in arms” when Fox’s long-running TV show “24” depicted Muslims as terrorists (Mother Jones pointed out that Islamic extremists actually filled the terrorist role in three seasons of the show).
“I think the true enemy is Ron Howard and Andy Griffith,” McDaniel joked.
Another clip from McDaniel’s radio show that surfaced last week showed him knocking hip-hop music as a “morally bankrupt” culture that incites gun violence.
