Featured Image Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Donald Trump
Phoebe Tonks
Ben Stiller has publicly slammed the White House after it used footage from his 2008 comedy Trophic Thunder in a social media post designed to promote US military activity in the Iran conflict.
The post from the Trump administration featured a compilation of several movies and TV shows including footage from Top Gun, Superman, Transformers, Breaking Bad and Iron Man, that was then cut with actual footage of the US military in action.
"Justice the American way," the White House captioned their post.
Needless to say, Stiller was not happy about it and took to social media himself to ask that they remove footage of his movie from the clip, as he argued: "Hey White House, please remove the Tropic Thunder clip."
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"We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie," he added.
Stiller’s objection is just the latest in a long line of criticisms from big name stars who have been forced to condemn the White House for using content without permission. Celine Dion, Bruce Springsteen, Linkin Park, Neil Young, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter and Radiohead are just a handful of the stars that have objected recently.
Just this week, Kesha spoke out after the White House used her track ‘Blow’ in a Feb. 10 video of a fighter jet firing a missile at a naval ship.
"It's come to my attention that The White House has used one of my songs on TikTok to incite violence and threaten war,” said the singer on Instagram. "Trying to make light of war is disgusting and inhumane.”
She then doubled down on the fact she ‘absolutely’ does not ‘approve of my music being used to promote violence of any kind.’
Yet rather than back down and remove the content, White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung doubled down on its use, before adding that it was all part of a plan to use the outrage as leverage to get more eyes on the administration’s messaging.
“All these ‘singers’ keep falling for this,” he wrote on X. “This just gives us more attention and more view counts to our videos because people want to see what they’re bitching about. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
It isn’t just actors and musicians that have taken issue with the White House’ social media strategy either, as even Nintendo have been forced to call out the White House for unlawful use of their intellectual property, after the Trump administration decided to use Pokemon characters in a series of political memes.
Most recently they used a tiny version of the popular character Pikachu, in a meme posted online with the phrase "Make America Great Again”.
This immediately prompted a stern backlash from Nintendo who said in a statement: "We were not involved in its creation or distribution, and no permission was granted for the use of our intellectual property. "Our mission is to bring the world together, and that mission is not affiliated with any political viewpoint or agenda.”
It isn’t the first time the company has been forced to hit out at the White House, as last September they publicly rebuked President Donald Trump's administration for using its theme song, and slogan "Gotta catch 'em all", in a video showing arrests made by US border patrol and immigration agents.
So far, it isn’t known whether the company intends to take legal action against Trump for the memes, but Nintendo is in the process of suing the US Government over the ‘unlawful’ tariffs introduced last year - and has demanded repayment in full with interest.