Oscar-winning director Spike Lee is certainly no stranger to controversy, a fact he reinforced on Thursday when he demanded that workers in the entertainment industry move out of Georgia because of a new state law that prohibits killing unborn infants after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
According to an article written by Associated Press reporter Lindsey Bahr, the director called for the entertainment industry to “shut it down” in Georgia and claimed that such a loss of income for those in the Peach State is necessary.
“I know it’s going to affect people’s livelihood,” Lee stated, “but that’s how things change.”
The liberal director compared the situation to that of the black bus drivers affected by the Civil Rights Movement-era boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
He also noted: “You’ve got to be on the right side of history, and the state of Georgia and those other states, they’re wrong."
Lee made the comment while attending Denzel Washington’s American Film Institute lifetime achievement tribute on Thursday in Los Angeles.
Also discussing the matter was Nardine Saad, an entertainment reporter for the Los Angeles Times, who noted that the influx of business from Hollywood has created 92,000 jobs there since 2010, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.
As NewsBusters reported back in February, this isn’t the first time Lee has beckoned people to “be on the right side of history.”
While receiving an award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his BlacKkKlansman movie during the 91st Academy Awards on ABC, Lee took advantage of the opportunity to remind viewers that "the 2020 presidential election is around the corner.”
He also urged people to “mobilize” and “all be on the right side of history” while making “the moral choice between love versus hate” and echoing the title of his 1989 movie to “do the right thing.”
