Influencers. They’re a constant source of teatox sponsorships and problematic bullshit, but Jackie Oshry of The Morning Toast has taken it to a new level with her recent insensitive comments about the 2012 Dark Knight Rises shootings in Aurora, Colorado. And to make matters worse, she’s refusing to apologise. Yikes.
In a recent episode of her The Morning Toast podcast with sister and fellow influencer Claudia Oshry (aka @girlwithnojob), she discussed safety at the movies. To put it simply, she discussed how she doesn’t feel like she’ll get shot at the theatres because she goes to expensive cinemas, because mass-shooters apparently only target poor people.
Umm… what? Where do I begin? There is so much to unpack here.
The conversation went a little like this:
“You know when you’re in a movie theatre in America, like you’re always looking over your shoulder – we’ve actually left movie theatres,” Claudia said.
“Yes, I don’t feel that way anymore ever since the elevation of the movie theatre experience with iPic and some of the nicer movie theatres,” Jackie said. “No offence, this is going to sound awful, but if you’re going to shoot up a movie theatre, it’s not going to be the most expensive one.”
But it gets worse. Claudia continues the conversation, talking about going to a “standard movie theatre,” before her sister interrupts to remind us that she’s simply cannot do that.
“Oh, that I can’t do,” she said.
In case you’ve forgotten, James Holmes is currently serving 3,318 years without parole for the senseless murder of 12 people at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado back in 2012. The event was horrific and has left thousands of people frankly terrified of going to the cinema in fear of a copycat attack.
The Colorado shooting took place seven years ago, but still feels eerily recent. Even here in Australia this massacre leaves me feeling uneasy to this day, let alone in America where a majority of their audience resides.
Gun violence is an unfortunate reality in America, and it is happening to people of all ages, genders and socioeconomic backgrounds. The victims of this horrendous attack didn’t die because they were too poor to pay for a $30 movie ticket. They died because of problematic gun laws.
Additionally, rich people (or anyone who can afford $30 for a movie ticket) are still very capable of doing terrible things. This whole issue has nothing to do with the price of movie tickets and everything to do with the inappropriate gun laws that continue to ravage the United States every single day.
The ordeal has been thrown back into the spotlight in recent weeks as the new Joker film begins to hit cinemas. Many cinemas have ramped up security measures, and the Aurora cinema has decided to ban showings of the film altogether out of respect for the victims of the 2012 attack.
But that’s not enough to censor Jackie, who even went so far as to say she wouldn’t apologise for the comments. Instead, she issued a lengthy statement that somehow dug her into a deeper hole.
“Why would a shooter pay $30 for a movie when they can pay $15?” part of the statement read.
Umm… what? I’m not sure how this apology ended up being even more offensive and insensitive than the original comment. These people didn’t get shot because they bought cheaper movie tickets. That’s not how mass-shootings work.
She then went on to discuss it in the following day’s podcast episode, “yesterday I offended some people on this show about movie theatres. There was a lot of talk about it. People really want me to apologise, and I’ve thought about this…and I’m not going to apologise for what I said, because people are making it so much more than it is. And I don’t want to condone doing that.”
Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can have such a tone deaf response to such a horrific and still somewhat recent incident.
Sorry, Jackie, but this ain’t it.
