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Hollywood A-lister Benedict Cumberbatch took aim at the controversy ignited by actor Sam Elliot who said the Oscar-nominated film called “The Power of the Dog” is a “piece of s***.”
Cumberbatch didn’t refer to Elliot directly by name, but alluded to the controversy. Leftists are trying to spin Elliot’s comments as “homophobic” because the film emphasizes homosexual themes on a ranch in 1925 Montana.
Elliott, who is well known for his “grit and toughness” while starring in western films, has received numerous nominations, including the Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
“That’s what all these f***ing cowboys in that movie looked like,” Elliot responded. “They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the f***ing movie.”
Cumberbatch, who stars in “Power of the Dog,” sounded off with his own reaction to Elliot’s criticism.
“I think if we are to teach our sons to be feminists, if we’re to teach equality, if we’re to understand what poisons the well in men, [and] what creates toxic masculinity, we need to understand and look under the hood of characters like Phil Burbank to see what their struggle is and why that’s there in the first place because otherwise it will just keep repeating itself,” Cumberbatch said.
Cumberbatch suggested that views held by Elliot and others about the film are “very odd.”
He implied that Elliot appears to have a problem “that anybody could have any other than a heteronormative existence because of what they do for a living or where they’re born.”
“I think the more we look under the hood of toxic masculinity and try to discover the root causes of it, the bigger the chance we have of dealing with it when it arises with our children in playgrounds at school, with their friends, in the behavioral patterns we might see in innocent play and just understand how to police that,” Cumberbatch added.
The film is the most Oscar-nominated film this year, receiving 12 nominations.
Elliot’s comments were made during an appearance on the “WTF Podcast” with host Marc Maron.
Here’s how the exchange went via Daily Wire:
Maron: Did you see Power of the Dog? Did you watch that movie
Elliott: Yeah. Do you want to talk about that piece of s***?
Maron: You didn’t like that one?
Elliott: F*** no.
Maron: Okay. Why?
Elliott: I’ll tell you why. I read a f***ing — I didn’t like it anyway; I looked at it when I was down there in Texas doing 1883; and what really brought it home to me the other day when I said to you “Do you want to talk about it”— there was a f***ing full-page ad out in the LA Times and there was a review — not a review but a —
Maron: Clip.
Elliott: A clip, yeah. And it talked about the “Evisceration of the American Myth.” And I thought, “What the f***? What the f***?” This is a guy who’s done Westerns forever.
Maron: For his whole life.
Elliott: The Evisceration of the American West. What are all those dancers, those guys in New York who wear bowties and not much else? Remember them from back in the day?
Maron: Oh, the Chippendales.
Elliott: Yeah. That’s what all these f***ing cowboys in that movie look like. They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the f***king movie.
Maron: I think that’s what the movie’s about.
Elliott: Yeah. Well, what the f*** does this woman from —
Maron: Who, Jane Campion?
Elliott: Yeah,. She’s a brilliant director. I love her work, previous work. But what the f*** does this woman from down there, New Zealand, know about the American West? And why in the f*** does she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana and say this is the way it was? That f***ing rubbed me the wrong way, pal. The myth is that there were these macho men out there with the cattle? I just came from Texas where I was hanging out with families — not men — but families. Big, long, extended, multiple-generation families that made their living and their lives were all about being cowboys. And, boy, when I f***ing saw that, I thought, ‘What the f***? Where are we in this world today?’”
Maron: I don’t know that that’s the biggest issue at hand.
Elliott: Well, it’s not the biggest issue, but for me it was the only issue because there was so much of it. I mean, Cumberbatch never got out of his f***ing chaps. He had two pairs of chaps — a woolly pair and a leather pair. And every f***ing time he would walk in from somewhere — I don’t know where in the f*** — he never was on a horse, maybe once — he’d walk into the f***ing house, storm up the f***ing stairs, go lay in his bed in his chaps and play his banjo. It’s like, what the f***? What the f***? Where’s the Western? Where’s the Western in this Western?
He continued, “I take it personal. I take it f***ing personal, pal.”
