In filmmaker Chris Columbus, we have a case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that is so virulent and severe that Columbus wants to reach back in time, like Stalin having Bolsheviks who had fallen out of favor erased from photos, or the memory hole workers in Orwell’s “1984,” and erase Donald Trump from his cameo appearance in the smash hit movie “Home Alone 2.” Columbus says that the seven seconds of Trump in “Home Alone 2,” which came out in 1992, have become an “albatross” and a “curse.”
And of course it’s true. Columbus works in Hollywood, where hatred of Trump is more necessary to get work than a valid ID is to cast a vote. Columbus has likely gotten flak from his peers for the Trump cameo for three decades now — no, wait, scratch that: Columbus likely got nothing but kudos and applause from his peers for the Trump cameo for fully 23 years, from 1992 to 2015, until that fateful day that the billionaire business tycoon descended the escalator at Trump Tower and became Orange Man Bad.
Now, however, Columbus has no doubt endured ten years of self-righteous ranting and hectoring from his far, far-left colleagues over the seven apparently innocuous seconds in which Trump appears in the movie, and he is tired. Tired of the abuse. Tired of the ostracism. Tired of being suspected, and almost certainly open accused, and at the best parties, too, of (gasp) MAGA sentiments. Stalinism can be a fearful thing when you’re bearing the brunt of it, and Columbus is throwing up his hands and announcing to anyone and everyone his readiness to surrender.
In Columbus’ TDS-addled mind, however, he is afraid that if he does submit to the Hollywood Stalinists and cut Trump from this old movie in which millions upon millions of people have already seen him, the director will face the wrath of Trump himself, you know, the fascist dictator who is busy destroying “our democracy.”
“I can’t cut it,” Columbus whined in an interview that the San Francisco Chronicle ran Monday. “If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country. I’ll be considered sort of not fit to live in the United States, so I’ll have to go back to Italy or something.”
Yeah, that’s gonna happen. Columbus was born in Pennsylvania, and is in less than zero danger of being deported, but the left’s latest hysterical lie about Trump is that — in a craven attack on the freedom of speech that the left just spent four years working to destroy — he is deporting people simply for criticizing him. Columbus is clearly anxious to demonstrate to his leftist friends and coworkers, who are likely as intolerant of dissent as all leftists tend to be, that he really is one of them, despite committing the nigh-unpardonable sin of putting Trump in a movie over two decades before Trump became the left’s most hated man.
Meanwhile, “Home Alone 2” has made Chris Columbus a rich man. It cost $18 million to make and has earned $475 million, but that Trump cameo sours the joy Columbus might otherwise have in his substantial cut of those earnings. And so he started complaining in 2020, 28 years after the fact, that Trump would only let them use the Plaza hotel, which he owned at the time, if Columbus put him in the movie. Columbus claimed: “We paid the fee, but he also said, ‘The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.’ So we agreed to put him in the movie.”
Trump disputes this claim, writing in 2023: “I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent. I agreed, and the rest is history! That little cameo took off like a rocket, and the movie was a big success, and still is, especially around Christmas time. People call me whenever it is aired. Now, however, 30 years later, Columbus (what was his real name?) put out a statement that I bullied myself into the movie. Nothing could be further from the truth. That cameo helped make the movie a success … Just another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself!”
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Columbus even concedes that the Trump cameo is popular with audiences: “We screened the film in Chicago, and when that moment came onscreen the audience went crazy. They cheered and they cheered and they thought it was hilarious. I think I know a lot about comedy, but I don’t, obviously, because I never thought that was going to be considered hilarious.”
And now, the poor Trump-hater is suffering: “Years later, it’s become this curse. It’s become this thing that I wish it was not there. What’s going through this guy’s mind? He said I was lying. I’m not lying. He said I begged him to be in the movie, but there’s no world I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie. But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel. But it’s there. It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone.”
So maybe it will be soon. If George Lucas can remake “Star Wars” long after the fact, Chris Columbus can memory-hole Trump’s “Home Alone 2” cameo, despite his claim that he is afraid of doing so for fear of the Wrath of Trump. And the “tolerant” left would then congratulate him for demonstrating his ideological purity.
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