Did the Black Panther star do her research or watch the full video before she tweeted?
The Tweet
Guyanese-British actor Letitia Wright should be on the path to a bright future. After the unfortunate death of Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman, many believe it will be Wright who takes on the mantle of the Marvel superhero. In the prior movie, Wright played Shuri, the princess of the fictional African nation Wakanda. In the comics, Shuri takes on the Black Panther name after her brother T’Challa (Boseman). But now, Wright’s in the midst of controversy after she posted an anti-COVID-19 vaccine video.
On her Twitter account, which she has now deleted, Letitia Wright shared an anti-vax conspiracy video from the “On The Table” YouTube channel. That YouTube channel is run by anti-LGBTQ Christian brothers named Tomi and Tobi Arayomi. In the video, Tomi states that despite not “understand[ing] vaccines medically,” he believes people who take a COVID-19 vaccine will have to “hope it doesn’t make extra limbs grow.” He also added anti-climate change comments and threw in a few transphobic statements for good measure.
He remarked, “If you look at somebody that was genetically born a male but you say ‘that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl, that’s a girl’ enough times, eventually you will force compliance by the composition of my speech to say something that I just technically, biologically don’t believe it.”
The Pushback
After Letitia Wright posted the video, Twitter users quickly condemned Letitia Wright. Some called out Wright for spreading misinformation. Others asked if she believed in the transphobic remarks, ignored them, or didn’t see them. And others, as is the norm for Twitter, made jokes.
https://twitter.com/Burger_Lurker/status/1334935952121335808?s=20
So did you see this portion of the video and still think it was a wise idea to share this video. pic.twitter.com/YuwJ96JT3o
— Stern Ritter "B" (@803BG) December 4, 2020
Ugh I used to like letitia wright, but now she’s gone and shared a video of a homophobic, transphobic man, who admits he has no qualifications regarding medicine, but goes on to tell everyone why they shouldn’t get vaccinated 🤦🏻♀️ People are dying out here ffs pic.twitter.com/IoCRDyvjy9
— Leopard Gecko | Rebecca (@LGTYoutube) December 4, 2020
letitia wright is such a good actor we believed she believed science. incredible.
— i can be your long lost pal (@PallaviGunalan) December 4, 2020
Marvel executives after seeing why Letitia is trending #LetitiaWright pic.twitter.com/y5I8h791W9
— giovanni 💟 (@vannidelai) December 5, 2020
MCU twitter to MCU twitter
Letitia Wright to Letitia
Before wright now pic.twitter.com/3bPxWGB8UB— I am here I guess? (@kentosfilm) December 4, 2020
Letitia Wright most likely to be Letitia WRONG pic.twitter.com/EO2wzNGmNn
— solcito (@_valkyriecroft) December 4, 2020
In response, Wright tweeted, “my intention was not to hurt anyone, my ONLY intention of posting the video was it raised my concerns with what the vaccine contains and what we are putting in our bodies…Nothing else.”
She then later added, “If you don’t conform to popular opinions, but ask questions and think for yourself… you get cancelled.”
In response to that, one Twitter user wrote poignantly, “Everyone can have an opinion, but if you want your opinion to raise awareness you have to be properly backed up, smart questioning will and has, improved scientific advances, it’s encouraged by every scientist out there!”
After the online pushback, Letitia Wright deleted the tweet. In addition, YouTube deleted the video for violating its terms of service. But that’s not all. As Variety reports, Wright’s entire Twitter and Instagram accounts have also been deleted.
What Was She Thinking?
But is Letitia Wright transphobic? Most likely, no. If we take her by her word, she wanted to question the safety of the two vaccines being tested for distribution. But blindly posting a video by a guy who confesses to not having any understanding of vaccines isn’t helping anyone. Plus, Letitia Wright has worked with LGBTQ people. In 2015, she appeared in Russell T Davies’ Cucumber and Banana. Though, to be fair, she could possibly support gay stories and storytellers without supporting transgender people.
But what do her coworkers and fellow Marvel actors think? Iron Patriot actor Don Cheadle tweeted that he would “never defend anybody posting this.”
“Jesus… just scrolled through. hot garbage. every time i stopped and listened, he and everything he said sounded crazy and fkkkd up,” Cheadle wrote. “i would never defend anybody posting this. but i still won’t throw her away over it. the rest i’ll take off twitter. had no idea [sic].”
https://twitter.com/DonCheadle/status/1334736415884656641
Most likely, Letitia Wright posted a video without thinking and doesn’t actually support most of the video’s messaging. Should she be canceled for that? No. But, she sure has created unnecessary drama for herself. So at the end of the day, the lesson is… watch THE FULL VIDEO & think before you tweet, folks.
Source: Variety,
