Bill Maher blames movies for shootings in attack on ‘woke’ Hollywood

Bill Maher took aim at ‘woke’ Hollywood for mass shootings in America, saying the industry was partially responsible because it pumps out movies and television shows that glorify gun violence.

During his closing segment on The Real Time on Friday, the talk show host slammed Hollywood for being ‘the wokest place on Earth,’ yet it still mass produces films where heroes solve their problems with guns. 

‘They hate it when gun people say it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun, but they endlessly produce movies with that exact plot,’ Maher quipped. 

‘They have intimacy coordinators on set to chaperone sex scenes, they hire sensitivity readers to go through and edit scripts, Disney stood up to the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, another studio spent $10 million to digitally remove Kevin Space from a movie, but when it comes to the unbridled romanticization of gun violence, crickets.

‘Weird. The only thing we don’t call a trigger is the one that actually has a trigger.’ 

Real Time host Bill Maher slammed Hollywood for glorifying gun violence, which he said is partially responsible for mass shooting in America

Among the movies Maher claimed were troubling were films like Django Unchained (left) and The Punisher (right), both popular stories where the protagonist uses guns to take revenge

Mourners paying respects and reflecting at memorial outside the Robb Elementary School on June 1 for the victims of the Uvalde school shooting

Maher’s criticism comes as many actors and celebrities have joined calls on Congress to pass gun reform legislation in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were massacred. 

Among the most vocal advocates was actor Matthew McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, who recently lobbied at the White House to curb gun violence. 

The actor suggested a national red flag system, background checks, raising the age someone can buy an assault rifle to 21 and a waiting time before buying them. 

But Maher said Hollywood needed to focus on its own role in propagating these shootings, claiming films and TV, smart phones, mental health issues, and easy access to firearms made up the four major reasons why mass shootings happen.

‘When liberals scream, ‘Do something!’ after a mass shooting, why aren’t we also dealing with the fact that the average American kid sees 200,000 acts of violence on screens before the age of 18, the comedian said, ‘And that according to the FBI, one of the warning signs of a potential school shooter is ‘a fascination with violence-filled entertainment.” 

Maher said movies and TV where the fourth element as to why mass shooting occur along with smart phones, mental health issues, and easy access to firearms (above)

Actor Matthew McConaughey (pictured), a native of Uvalde, lobbied at the White House this week to call on lawmakers to pass gun reform legislation 

Among the movies Maher claimed were troubling were films like Django Unchained and The Punisher, both popular stories where the protagonist uses guns to take revenge.   

‘They call them action movies,’ Maher scuffed. ‘They should call them revenge movies because that’s the plot of every one of them. 

‘And there’s a sick similarity in the revenge fantasies Hollywood turns out and those of school shooters.’ 

The shooter in Uvalde, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was allegedly bullied before he dropped out of high school and killed students and teachers at his former elementary school. 

While Maher’s arguments are usually used by gun-rights advocates and conservatives, the talk show host denied he was using partisan rhetoric. 

‘The usual suspects on the far-left will say that I’m delivering some sort of conservative rant here or that I’m undermining gun control,’ he said. 

‘No. It’s neither. It’s just what’s real.’