Did Woody Harrelson promote a COVID-19 anti-vaxx theory on SNL? - Deseret News | By The Perfect Enemy

Actor Woody Harrelson slipped in a joke that’s being seen as promoting a popular anti-COVID-19 vaccination theory during his opening monologue as host of last weekend’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Described by The Washington Post as “America’s stoner uncle,” Harrelson mostly talked about his longtime marijuana use at the start of the NBC comedy show. But he also told a story about being pitched a “crazy idea” the year before the pandemic.

It was a script where “the biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes,” the actor famous for his role on “Cheers” said.

“And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over,” he said, adding he threw the script away. “I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day long.”

While that drew some laughter from the studio audience, it’s also sparked a debate about the federally approved shots on social media that shows no sign of slowing down, fueled by praise from controversial Twitter owner Elon Musk.

“So based. Nice work @nbcsnl!,” tweeted Musk, a former “SNL” host. Later, he responded to media reports about Harrelson’s monologue shared by Twitter users who tout conspiracy theories by tweeting, “Maybe they don’t realize that their propaganda is wrong?”

Others on social media expressed frustration that falsehoods continue to be spread about the deadly pandemic.

John Pavlovitz, known as “the digital pastor of the resistance” during Donald Trump’s presidency, tweeted, “Anti-Vaxxers won’t listen to highly educated people who’ve spent their lives devoted to science and medicine—but they will listen to a guy who they saw in that movie they watched a few years ago.”

“Grrr…” tweeted Timothy Caulfield, a Canadian professor of health law and science policy, citing Harrelson’s previous erroneous statements about the virus. “Does #SNL think just harmless noise? Normalizing #antivaxx conspiracies does real harm!”

Harrelson was among those who linked 5G networks to the COVID-19 pandemic in a since-deleted Instagram post, calling the debunked theory “very interesting,” according to The New York Post.

Harrelson also complained to Vanity Fair last year about masking and other “absurd protocols” in place on movie sets. “As one who doesn’t believe in the germ theory, I find it rather absurd,” he said.

People magazine reported that “SNL” and NBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the controversy. Attempts to watch the monologue on the network’s site were met with an error message.

#Coronavirus, #Coverage, #Vaccines

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Published on The Perfect Enemy at https://bit.ly/3IZK4dS.