Jane Fonda has publicly defended Mark Ruffalo after Paramount accused him of invoking antisemitic tropes, escalating a dispute that began when the actor linked the studio’s proposed $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery to the Ellison family’s business ties with Israel. Fonda, speaking through the Committee for the First Amendment, called the studio’s characterization a deliberate attempt to distract from legitimate scrutiny of the deal.
The clash began last Friday when Ruffalo posted a video on Instagram showing Oracle executive vice chair Safra Catz discussing technology the company supplied to the Israeli military following the Oct. 7 attacks. Ruffalo tied that footage to Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder, whose son David Ellison runs Paramount Skydance and is pursuing the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Ruffalo described the elder Ellison as a “classic oligarch” and warned that the surveillance capabilities discussed by Catz could eventually be folded into one of the world’s largest media conglomerates.
Paramount responded swiftly, telling reporters it was “troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute,” and argued that terms like “genocide” and “apartheid” had no place in a conversation about a corporate transaction. Ruffalo pushed back forcefully, calling the accusation “appalling and fundamentally dishonest” in a statement posted to social media.
Fonda’s rebuttal, issued Tuesday through the advocacy group she founded, framed the studio’s response as an effort to sidestep the underlying question of media consolidation. “Calling his criticism antisemitic is a smear to delegitimize criticism of the merger and to distract from the question Paramount would rather not answer: should one company be allowed to accumulate this much power over our movies, television and news?” she wrote. Fonda, who is Jewish, added that treating antisemitism accusations as a political weapon undermines the seriousness of real antisemitism. Oscar-winning producer Bruce Cohen, a fellow committee member, echoed that concern, saying he found it troubling to see the charge used to silence legitimate criticism.
The confrontation lands amid a turbulent stretch for the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal. Netflix walked away from a competing bid in February rather than outbid Paramount Skydance’s offer, despite having reached its own $82.7 billion agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery months earlier before Skydance launched a hostile approach. The Committee for the First Amendment, revived by Fonda earlier this year, traces its name to the original 1947 group formed to oppose Hollywood blacklisting, a parallel Fonda invoked directly in her statement, warning against reviving those tactics against modern activists.
