With action movie legend Chuck Norris unable to fight back, Variety unleashed an attack under the guise of an obituary.
In anopinion piece, William Earl said the characters Norris played committed the unforgivable sin of making it appear that the American military was a force for justice.
Norris was “the all-American archetype of the muscled action star,” Earl wrote, saying the actor “felt commissioned by the military to prove what a good, strong man was,” before labeling much of Norris’s popular work as “morally simplistic action films.”
Earl wrote that Norris’s legacy is troubled because his films represented a point of view with which Earl disagreed.
“Was Norris a brilliant athlete and top-shelf star? Yes. But there’s no denying that his roles were part of a body of work used to show American strength, might and the pernicious attraction of taking the law into one’s own hands — something that seems less fun in a year in which our country is funneling money into bombing Iran and ICE agents are acting like one-man militia,” he wrote.
He was a conservative man of God. His legacy is just fine.https://t.co/c7t2oreE08
— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_)March 20, 2026
“Given our nation’s divisions in morality, information literacy and overall sense of reality, it’s easier to see Norris’ characters as justification for a fringe conspiracy movement rather than a moral standing,” he continued.
“When patriotism and laws shift away from the Constitution, what side does a gunslinger land on?”
“While Hollywood takes endless shots for being too liberal or left-leaning, it’s a short-sighted criticism considering the industry’s decades of glorifying American military strength. Ultimately, genre fans can appreciate Norris as a larger-than-life marquee figure,” Earl wrote.
Source: VidNews » Feed
