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Jenna Ortega, after Melissa Barrera, her co-star and on-screen sister was abruptly sacked from Scream VII for making pro-Palestine statements on social media, the star is being threatened with quitting the huge horror franchise.
Melissa Barrera, who plays the lead character Sam Carpenter in the wildly popular Scream reboot series, reportedly lost her job last night after making remarks about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine that were interpreted as evoking a well-known anti-Semitic stereotype.
In a now-deleted Instagram story, Melissa Barrera asserted that “Censorship is very real” and questioned why she could not find “videos and information about the Palestinian side,” continuing to say “western media” suppressed information and “Why they do that, I will let you deduce for yourself.”
Particularly the last claim, which was said to be evoking the anti-Semitic conspiracy idea that Jews controlled Western media, drew criticism. The production company behind the series, Spyglass Media Group (distributed by Paramount Pictures), immediately fired Melissa Barrera from the impending Scream sequel.
Spyglass issued a statement, saying, “[Our] stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
Fans of the Scream series are claiming that Jenna Ortega, who plays Tara Carpenter, Barrera’s younger sister in the films, has begged to be freed from her responsibilities and would leave the huge franchise in protest less than a day later.
