Tim Allen was already an unfunny comedian prior to sitting down for an interview with Jimmy Kimmel last week.
But then the actor went ahead and compared modern society to the Holocaust, actually claiming that Republicans in Hollywood these days have something in common with Jews in Nazi-occupied Germany…
… and now he’s gone from merely being unfunny to becoming a national embarrassment.
Appearing Thursday on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Allen discussed attending Donald Trump’s inauguration and offered his thoughts on the polarizing political climate.
As one of the few Conservatives in show business, he told the host and his audience:
“You gotta be real careful around here. You get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes. This is like ’30s Germany.”
Yes, like ’30s Germany. When it was run by Adolf Hitler. And when millions of Jewish people were rounded up, thrown into concentration camps and killed by the Nazi regime.
You can see Allen make these actual, real-life comments in the video below:
In response to these remarks, hopefully any level-headed human being was aghast and appalled.
But the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect has specifically called out Allen for what it has deemed to be his “deeply offensive characterization” of the situation, adding in further detail, via a statement from the organization’s executive director:
“Tim, have you lost your mind?
“No one in Hollywood today is subjecting you or anyone else to what the Nazis imposed on Jews in the 1930s – the world’s most evil program of dehumanization, imprisonment and mass brutality, implemented by an entire national government, as the prelude for the genocide of nearly an entire people.”
The statement concluded:
“Sorry, Tim, that’s just not the same as getting turned down for a movie role.
“It’s time for you to leave your bubble to apologize to the Jewish people and, to be sure, the other peoples also targeted by the Nazis.”
That pretty much says it all, but it’s still worth emphasizing:
1. Over six millions people were killed in the Holocaust. As far we we know, not a single Republican has been killed in Hollywood for expressing his or her viewpoint.
2. Allen is (somehow) STILL working on the ABC sitcom Last Man Standing. It’s filmed over 100 episodes!
3. He’s been the voice of Buzz Lightyear in all three Toy Story films. He starred in one of the most beloved shows of its era, Home Improvement, during the mid-1990s.
In other words: The guy is not hurting for work.
This would be a ridiculous, inappropriate, hurtful statement to make by anyone.
But it’s especially off-base and tone deaf when coming from an actor who has been regular employed (and VERY well compensated) for well over 20 years.
The Anne Frank Center is named after the young Jewish girl who kept a now-published diary while hiding from the Nazis and says its mission is to call out “prejudice” in the world.
The group also “counters discrimination and advocates for the kinder and fairer world of which Anne Frank dreamed.”
Allen is yet to speak out on his controversial quip.
But he’d be well-served to issue a mea culpa and move on.
What a stupid thing to say.
Can the world just agree to cease all comparisons to the Holocaust on a grand scale?
Until a dictator comes into power and starts rounding up individuals from a certain ethnicity for mass imprisonment and slaughter, NOTHING is like 1930s Germany, okay?
