Mark Hamill stirs outrage by calling Ivanka Trump a ‘fraud’ for ‘Star Wars’ photo of son
The 'Star Wars' actor had a problem with Ivanka Trump sharing a photo of her 3-year-old son dressed in stormtrooper costume.
Like a lot of critics of the Trump administration, Mark Hamill has apparently grown weary of Ivanka Trump using cute photos of her children to soften her image as she continues her public and sizable role in an controversial administration that they see as corrupt and dangerous to the country.
That weariness showed when Hamill took to Twitter to call the White House senior advisor a “fraud” after she tweeted out a photo of her youngest son, Theodore, 3, dressed up as a “Star Wars” stormtrooper.
Ivanka’s photo also showed her smiling and dressed up in a black gown beside her husband Jared Kushner. The couple looked like they dressed to go out somewhere, while their two older children played in their Washington D.C. living room. Ivanka Trump captioned the photo: “The Force is strong in my family.”
It appears that Hamill was not happy that Donald Trump’s daughter would appropriate a popular symbol and phrase from the “Star Wars” universe to present herself as a glamorous but fun-loving mother.
Hamill, whose Luke Skywalker made him one of the franchise’s most famous and enduring stars, retweeted the photo and wrote: “You misspelled ‘Fraud,'” along with the hashtag “#GoForceYourself.”
Hamill, who has 3.3 million followers, drew mixed reactions for his tweet. Most of the negative reactions came from people who thought he was off-base for appearing to criticize a young child. Even some self-proclaimed Hamill fans were put off.
“Dude, it’s a child,” wrote one person. Another wrote, “Way to attack a child,” while a third wrote, “I‘ve been a fan of yours for 40 years. Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw. I hate the Trumps too. But leave the kids out of it.”
“Dude, don’t get mad at a kid for liking Star Wars,” wrote a fourth.
“No matter what your politics .. these are kids and a sweet photo,” wrote a fifth. “It’s exactly this type of commentary and behavior that made my decision to vote Trump16, Now Trump2020. Kids deserve better from adults.”
But more than 460,000 people users liked Hamill’s tweet, and others defended the actor by saying he wasn’t targeting Ivanka Trump’s son but the first daughter and her husband for being loyal members of her father’s administration.
The couple individually and together have faced accusations in published reports of engaging in fraudulent business practices and of using their White House jobs to enrich themselves personally. They also have been criticized for failing to speak out against some of the administration’s most controversial policies, including the policy of separating young migrant children from their parents and holding them in detention centers.
Ivanka Trump was blasted across social media in May 2018 for another photo she posted of Theodore. She shared a gauzy photo of her cuddling Theodore, then 2, at the same time that widespread news reports were detailing accounts of young immigrant children being “ripped out of the arms” of their mothers at the U.S. border.
Following the controversy over the photo, Ivanka took a break from making her three young children regular features of her social media accounts. Over the years, carefully staged images of Arabella, Joseph and Theodore Kushner have often popped up at times that their brand-conscious mother appeared eager to advance some kind of agenda in her business or in her work at the White House.
Some fans of Hamill’s tweet appeared to be aware of Ivanka Trump’s social media habits. They also raised the issue of the Trump administration’s family separation policy in praising Hamill’s tweet.
“Nice that their kids aren’t in cages though,” wrote one fan.
“Those saying ‘Imagine saying that to the young child in a costume; what will happen if the child reads this?’ switch that up to ‘That poor child living in a cage without his mother; what will he do without her?’ and then wring your pearls #GoForceYourself,” wrote another.
A third person imagined the little boy asking: “Mommy, why does Luke Skywalker hate us? Because we are terrible, terrible people, son.”
Another person wrote about feeling sorry for Ivanka Trump’s children. “I can’t fault the kids, they didn’t choose to be born into the Trump Crime Syndicate, lets hope they have better role models once the justice system finally “forces” the adults into a jail cell! #GoForceYourself #Skywalker2020.”
Others said people upset that Hamill criticized Ivanka Trump for one of her family photos should ask whether their concern is misdirected.
“I like how people get all bent about this, but it’s crickets when her family using the presidency to profit or the multitude of other infractions the ENTIRE family has done,” someone wrote.
“Clearly this is aimed at Ivanka, But the same people that were just making fun of Greta (Thunberg) are gonna have false outrage,” wrote another. “Hypocrites.”
Finally someone tweeted:
Forget the parents… this kid rocks. pic.twitter.com/M9LMUbYqgY
— Kris Lake (@KristopherLake) September 29, 2019