American filmmaker Joss Whedon, best known for directing Avengers Assemble and creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is coming under fire for a tweet in which he compared Ivanka Trump to a lapdog.
Whedon, an Oscar-nominee as the screenwriter of Toy Story, has been a prominent critic of Donald Trump, both during last year’s presidential campaign and since the Republican president was sworn a week ago.
During the election, Whedon assembled a crew of actors to star in a number of satirical videos, but it was a number of tweets he posted about Ivanka Trump and her husband Jacob Kushner that has provoked a backlash. Of Kushner, an appointed advisor to the administration despite a number of nepotism laws, Whedon wrote: “Hey, keep your eyes on this f***ing prize, too,” adding, “He’s a Voldemort in training, and unlike the Pekingese he married under, can play the long game.”
While Whedon’s tweet was met with praise – and further criticisms of the new President – by his fans, some people took umbrage at his likening of Ivanka Trump to a dog.
Hey, keep your eyes on this fucking prize too. He's a Voldemort in training, & unlike the Pekingese he married under, can play the long game pic.twitter.com/SNsuYdqlIp
— Joss Whedon (@joss) January 24, 2017
“Just so we’re on the same page here. You just called Ivanka a dog because you don’t agree with Trump. Classy,” replied one Twitter user.
“The left used to be better than this. You used to be better than this,” said another.
“Wow, calling his wife a dog? I guess it’s okay to demean women as long as you don’t like them or their husbands, eh?” wrote another, challenging the writer and director, who is well respected for developing strong female characters that break away from Hollywood tropes and archetypes.
Despite the criticism, Whedon hasn’t tempered his tweets about the new POTUS, posting more criticism of the new leader’s first week in the White House:
We have a dictator. Wow. We're THAT country now.
— Joss Whedon (@joss) January 25, 2017
Trump will never get over the fact that what he won was basically the world's biggest participation trophy
— Joss Whedon (@joss) January 25, 2017
