Photo: Gregg DeGuire/WireImageFirst Snopes
debunked it, now Morgan Freeman himself has stated that the
widely-circulated quote condemning the media's response to the Newtown,
CT tragedy is, in fact, not from him. The statement took the media to
task for the manner in which they cover mass shootings, claiming that it
glorifies the killers and gave other disturbed individuals an incentive
to follow suit. The fact that the statement purported to be from the
beloved, Academy Award-winning 75 year old actor led to it being posted
and re-posted far and wide the Internet over, which led some to become
suspicious of the quote's true source. This is not the first political
stance misattributed to Freeman: in September, a quote from a Twitter
parody account featuring Freeman's photo condemning homophobia was
widely attributed to the actor himself, in spite of clear
indications—the spelling of the account, the profanity it employed—that
it was not him.
Why Morgan Freeman, and why do so many people believe these quotes
are him? As it turns out, the original author of the quote, which
originated as a Facebook post about the Newtown shooting, commented, "If
I know the Internet, someone will attribute the quote to Morgan Freeman
or Betty White and it'll go viral." Leaving Betty White aside, someone
did attribute the quote to Morgan Freeman, and it did go viral, which
speaks to the body of work he's amassed as an actor, during the course
of which he has played countless wise old sages, the President of the
United States, and God.
It also speaks to the collective desire of a shocked and mourning
nation for comfort. If thoughts a lot of people are thinking anyway are
spoken by an actor as singularly beloved for as particular a kind of
role as Morgan Freeman, one can not be blamed for wishing it were so.
But, all the same, we should always check the sources of our
information.
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