Dwayne Johnson's Calculating Cowardice
I have long been a fan of wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. I’ve found him likable and charismatic, with a winking, self-deprecating persona that lets audiences know that he is intimately aware of the ridiculous nature of his life and career.
I am particularly fond of his performances in The Southland Tales, Be Cool, and The Other Guys. I’d love to see him do more oddball comic turns of that nature.
But I have been souring on Johnson as an actor and a ubiquitous, larger-than-life personality. I wrote a blog post not too long ago about how off-putting it was for Johnson to continually and publicly insist, in violent defiance of all available evidence, that his ill-begotten superhero vehicle Black Adam was a big, profitable hit beloved by the public that had a bright future as both a stand-alone property and as an essential component of the DCU going forward.
The Rock can no longer smell what Joe Biden is cooking
As I wrote then, Johnson is a big old winner. Pretending that perhaps his biggest flop was actually a secret success just made him seem sad, deluded, and pathetic. A real loser, in other words.
Johnson continues to publicly insist that agreeing to star in Black Adam and then flogging the movie relentlessly even after it died a richly merited death at the box office was a wonderful idea that he does not regret.
He does, however, deeply regret having endorsed Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections because I hope you are sitting down and have your monocle on tight—he discovered that fans of action movies and wrestling are generally not huge progressives and also literally think that Joe Biden is the devil and that Trump is a Christ-like savior.
All this societal division is making Johnson ANGRY!
In an interview with Fox News, Johnson conceded, “The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at that time… And I thought back then, when we talk about, 'Hey, you know, I'm in this position where I have some influence and it's my job then … to exercise my influence and share… this is who I'm going to endorse.’"
He continued, “Am I gonna do that again this year? That answer is no, I’m not gonna do that because what I realized — what that caused back then — was something that tears me up in my guts, back then and now, which is division. And that got me. The takeaway after that, months and months and months, I started to realize, like, ‘Oh man, that caused an incredible amount of division in our country.’” I realize now, going into this election, I’m not gonna do that, and I wouldn’t do that because my goal is to bring our country together. There’s gonna be no endorsement. Not that I’m afraid of it at all, but it’s just that I realize that this level of influence, I’m gonna keep my politics to myself. And I think it’s between me and the ballot box."
In reality, it was not Johnson’s endorsement of a moderate veteran Democratic politician over a dangerously unqualified White supremacist con artist and poster boy for Narcissistic Personality Disorder that divided our nation. It was Donald Trump who tore our country apart with his hateful cult of personality and empowerment of the worst, most toxic elements of our once kinda-okay nation.
Johnson’s endorsement cost the perception-and-popularity-obsessed mega-star some fans, and that obviously shook Johnson to the core. He did the right thing, but it negatively affected his public image among Conservatives, his popularity, and his bank account. That mattered to this superstar of color more than keeping a racist monster from further destroying our society.
Johnson professes to now be Sweden when it comes to his politics—neutral, baby—but Conservative fans could be mistaken for thinking that he is firmly on their side.
For starters, the interview ran on a Conservative news channel in which the manly man whines, “Today’s easy cancel-culture world, and cancel culture, woke culture, this culture, that culture, division, et cetera, that really bugs me. In the spirit of that, you either succumb and be what you think other people want you to be, or you go, ‘Well, no, that’s not who I am. I’m gonna be myself, and I’m gonna be real.’ If you ask me something, a real answer is important, and the truthful answer’s important. And that may get people upset, it may piss people off, and that’s okay.”
This is ironic, considering that Johnson is apologizing for giving a real answer to who he supported for President in 2020. It made many of his fans upset and pissed them off. For someone as perception-fixated as Johnson, that most assuredly is not okay.
The fact that Johnson does not give a real answer out of fear of pissing off fans undermines his contention that it’s important to give real answers even if it pisses people off.
Further dog whistles to the right include Johnson describing himself as a “patriot” and telling Fox News, “Like a lot of us out there, I’m not trusting of all politicians. I do trust the American people, and I trust that whoever they vote for, that’s gonna be my president, and that’s who I’m gonna support, 100 percent.”
I don’t trust the American people. Seventy-four million of them voted for Donald Trump. They have abysmal judgment much of the time. For example, Andy Borowitz, the worst hack in the history of the universe, is a millionaire many times over, while I have a credit score in the 400s.
If Johnson really supported the president 100 percent, he would not be on Fox News talking about how his support for Biden ripped our nation apart, tore him up inside, and is something he bitterly regrets and a mistake he will not make again.
He’d probably say something nice and supportive about the president instead.
Johnson is learning the hard, essential lesson that you can’t please everyone, and it’s foolish, cowardly, and counter-productive to try.
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