Sam Elliott is getting more attention for his comments on the award-losing film “The Power of the Dog” than the film itself.
In an NBC interview published Wednesday with the film’s female cinematographer, Ari Wegner, Elliott’s opinion of the movie made the headline, becoming a focal point of the piece. Ironically, the article intended to focus on Wegner being the second woman in the history of the Academy Awards to be nominated for “Best Cinematographer,” but this incredible success was overshadowed by Elliott.
“I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to what Sam Elliot recently said about the film. What did you make of his comments?” the male interviewer asked toward the end of the interview. (RELATED: Daily Mail Reporter Accosts Sam Elliott In Public Over His ‘Foul-Mouthed’ Description Of Gay Western)
“I had to laugh, really,” Wegner responded. I mean, I find it hard to take it seriously because it’s really a wonderful example of the point the film is trying to make: There’s so many stereotypes of what a man should be, and it’s crazy to think that they’re still so strong and present.” Her response appears to call into question whether she’d actually listened to Elliott’s comments at all.
“I don’t know. I had to laugh a little bit, not out of disrespect — everyone has their own opinion — but there is something deeply uneasy about hearing those kind of comments in 2022,” she went on to say.
It is unclear what kind of comments Wegner is referring to, but clearly, Elliott’s opinion continues to dominate the liberal media’s narrative of the film.
If you haven’t heard Elliott’s opinion of the film, he essentially focuses on the inaccuracies of cowboying portrayed by Jane Campion, the film’s director, along with Cumberbatch’s inability to take off his chaps.
“He was never on a horse, maybe once, he’d walk into the f**king house, storm up the f**king stairs, go lay in his bed in his chaps and play his banjo. It’s like, what the f**k?” Elliott told Marc Maron on his “WTF” podcast. His comments are totally fair. No real cowboy puts his filthy chaps on a bed, and no good woman would let him.
Marc Maron: Did you see Power of the Dog, did you see that movie?
Sam Elliott: Yeah do you wanna talk about that piece of shit?
Marc: [ohh noo] You didn’t like that one?
Sam: Fuck no. pic.twitter.com/BGdOd6scwe— Jonathan (@jonathanmb32) February 28, 2022
“They’re running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions of homosexuality throughout the f**king movie,” was Elliott’s single comment about homosexuality, to which Maron noted that was probably what the film was supposed to be about.
Interviews with the film’s leads, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Benedict Cumberbatch, have featured questions over Elliott’s comments. Notably, Cumberbatch referred to Elliott’s comments as the definition of “toxic masculinity,” saying it would be better “to teach our sons to be feminists.”