Disney stars defending convicted pedophiles is not a good look

Last Friday, teenager Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty of first-degree homicide. A jury decided that he shot three people, two fatally, in self-defense during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin. More than a year of shoddy journalism throughout the case’s coverage resulted in an American social media reaction largely split down political party lines. In Hollywood, progressives angrily complained, while the handful of openly conservative actors that still exist lauded the decision as a just outcome based on evidence. Notably, a pair of Disney stars expressed regret that the two deceased men, Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, were no longer with us. 

They quickly found that Twitter wasn’t having it. 

Mark Ruffalo, who’s played Bruce Banner and The Hulk for Marvel Studios since ‘The Avengers’ in 2012, tweeted first. “We come together,” he desponded, “to mourn the lives lost to the same racist system that devalues Black lives and devalued the lives of Anthony and JoJo. #ReimagineKenosha”

Pedro Pascal, who plays the title character on the Star Wars Disney+ show ‘The Mandalorian’, tweeted a similar sentiment on the following day, complete with photos of both men smiling like saints: “Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 27, murdered August 25th, 2020. Rest In Peace.” 

Apart from both statements, in view of Rittenhouse’s acquittal, being horrendously defamatory, it is worth taking a closer look at the lives led by the dearly departed Anthony and JoJo. Huber was a violent criminal who threatened family members with a knife and was convicted of repeated domestic abuse. Such a felonious past hasn’t prevented the Left from posthumously canonizing other people, certainly, but the straw that snapped this camel’s spine like a human bicep shot point-blank with an AR-15 was Ruffalo’s and Pascal’s attempts to eulogize ‘JoJo’ Rosenbaum. 

Rosenbaum, his lengthy criminal record shows, was a pedophile rapist of young boys.

The precise details are best left unarticulated, but the crimes are abhorrent and many, including forcible sodomy. Perhaps the leftist echo chamber in which Mark Ruffalo and Pedro Pascal reside has walls too thick to admit such information when it opposes a progressive narrative, or maybe they’re simply too intellectually incurious to bother to use a search engine before spewing their opinions online. Whatever the case, their laments met pushback, although ‘pushback’ may be an understatement. 

‘Gamma-irradiated, rage-infused Death Star laser of unfathomable disgust from thousands of horrified Twitter users’ is perhaps more appropriate.

“Child rapist defending f*cking c*nt” and “compromised, sellout bastard,” explained Paul Joseph Watson. 

“Why are you so aggressively normalizing pedophilia?” asked Steven Crowder. 

“You just publicly honored a guy who anally raped young children and tried to murder a teenager,” noted Seth Dillon. 

Benny Johnson pointed out that “the strongest defenders of convicted pedophiles are Disney stars.” 

It’s Mr. Johnson’s observation that stands out as the most troubling. Mr. Ruffalo has played The Hulk, a perpetual global marketing fixture on toys, cartoons, backpacks, and toothbrushes, for almost a decade, and will continue to do so on the upcoming Disney+ show ‘She-Hulk’. Mr. Pascal will be reprising his lead role of ‘The Mandalorian’ for its third season, currently in production.

Considering the firestorm of criticism these two actors have set ablaze, as well as the Walt Disney Company’s carefully curated presentation as a champion of children, one must ask Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars leadership – Bob Chapek, Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau, et al. – an important question. 

Why keep them? 

The Hulk is an entirely computer-generated creation, and he wasn’t even originally played by Mark Ruffalo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who replaced Edward Norton as the character after 2008’s ‘The Incredible Hulk’. Is Ruffalo so vital that a children’s entertainment company must retain an actor who uses pet names for pedophiles? 

‘The Mandalorian’ famously keeps his helmet on at (almost) all times and speaks in a filtered voice. Is Pascal so necessary that he absolutely has to stay in a role famous for caretaking a character literally named The Child, when Pedro himself expresses such sympathy for a man who molested and sodomized children? 

Disney doesn’t have a problem recasting important characters in its Marvel and Star Wars projects. Ask Mr. Norton, Terrence Howard (the first War Machine before Don Cheadle), or Jeremy Bulloch (though admittedly, the latter is deceased), the original Boba Fett (now played by Temeura Morrison). Considering the association Mark Ruffalo and Pedro Pascal now have with praising pedophiles – and judging by the Twitter-trending vehemence that praise met, the association isn’t going away soon – it would behoove Disney to sever ties with their unapologetic talent before a failure to do so enforces existing rumors about the company. 

For a billion-dollar producer of children’s programming, expressions of support for a child rapist simply must be a bridge too far.

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