Tom Hanks, Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jason Bateman and Martin Short are among the members of the Hollywood community who have signed an open letter with the American Civil Liberties Union protesting Disney’s decision to pull late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show off of its shedule and warning of its ramifications on Americans’ right to speak freely.

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The letter says that efforts to pressure artists, journalists, and others with retaliation for their speech “strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country” and closes by calling on all Americans to defend the right to speak freely.

 

“We now find ourselves in a modern McCarthy era, facing exactly the type of heavy-handed government censorship our Constitution rightfully forbids. The silencing of Jimmy Kimmel and jawboning of media outlets through lawsuits and threats to their licenses evoke dark memories of the 1950s,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which organized the letter, in a prepared statement. “We must remember, however, that Senator McCarthy was ultimately disgraced and neutralized once Americans mobilized and stood up to him. We must do the same today because, together, our voices are louder and, together, we will fight to be heard.”

 

The list of signatories also includes Ariana DeBose, Jane Fonda, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Regina King, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Diego Luna, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Natalie Portman, among others.

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Disney said last week Disney’s ABC that ot would take Kimmel‘s popular late-night show off its schedule “indefinitely” after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the U.S., Nexstar Media, said it intended to pre-empt airings of the program following remarks the host made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Nexstar said Wednesday that it “strongly objects” to Kimmel’s comments, made during last Monday’s broadcast of his program. Sinclair, another large station owner, has said it also intends to keep Kimmel’s program off of its stations.

 

The list includes some actors whose work is distributed by Disney. Martin Short, for example, is a star of the Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building,” in which Meryl Streep has a recurring role. Both Florence Pugh and Julia Louis-Dreyfus starred in the recent Marvel release “Thunderbolts,” has also signed the letter. Jamie Lee Curtis has a prominent recurring role in the FX series, “The Bear.” Kathryn Hahn recently starred in the Marvel streaming series “Agatha All Along.”

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