While traveling to promote her series, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” actress Elisabeth Moss asked to add to her wardrobe Planned Parenthood buttons or ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) Ribbons, which is something some would call controversial.
According to Vanity Fair, Karla Welch, Moss’s stylist, and Moss have teamed up to add a political voice to the star’s style for the course of her press for the new television series based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel.
With all the recent political action happening in our country, it has been brought into question as to whether or not celebrities or public figures should have the right to voice their opinions openly; which in reality, they should be able to.
Meryl Streep’s speech at this year’s Golden Globes also sets an example for incidents similar to Moss’s. During her awards speech, Streep voiced a strong, forceful opinion against Trump. The incident caused a great amount of backlash, including a tweet from President Trump himself calling Streep "overrated," and "a Hillary lover." Many well-known actors, including Streep, have made their feelings about our current political situation known. They do this not to climb the ladder to boost their numbers, but to express their views as an American citizen.
According to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, Americans are entitled to the rights of freedom, speech, press, assembly and religion. Being someone who is either a movie star, singer, author or any famous public figure shouldn’t be excluded from this.
Politics, for the most part, is a subject many of us try to avoid at all costs; though running away from the concept is impossible. The way we live as people, within a nation, live our lives is founded by politics. Of course, many of us, including A-listers, are going to have their own, and sometimes differing opinions, as well.
Though there does remain the fear that a celebrity's political opinions may cause possible backlash from consumers, this doesn’t mean they should automatically lose their voice as a citizen of our nation.