Morgan Freeman inadvertently sparked a debate on celebrity worship this week when he took on the role of moral authority when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations.
The man who played “God” in the 2007 film “Evan Almighty” told fans this week that he was lending his voice to a pandemic-related public service announcement because “people trust me.”
“I’m not a doctor,” he said Monday for a video released by The Creative Coalition. “But I trust science. And I’m told that for some reason, people trust me. So here I am to say I trust science and I got the vaccine. If you trust me, you’ll get the vaccine.”
Mr. Morgan then said the onus was on citizens to get vaccinated so society would become a “safe place for us to enjoy ourselves again.”
“Please,” he implored one last time in support of COVID-19 shots.
Viewers were split as to whether the actor’s activism was appropriate, given his absence of medical expertise.
“You’re an actor — someone who gets paid to act in a movie,” responded one viewer on the nonprofit organization’s YouTube page. “No one ‘trusts’ you.”
“The man is an actor,” responded another. “He lives off of telling lies and pretending. So yes, just another fiction movie.”
Others applauded the 83-year-old’s advocacy.
“I feel we can all agree this virus has gone on long enough and need to show a united front to stopping it for the future of humanity,” a pro-COVID-19 vaccine user wrote.
“It’s sad that we even have to ask people to take a damn vaccine in our modern age,” added another viewer. “It’s as if time has made our species more ignorant rather than intelligent.
Regardless, thank you, Morgan. I hope your voice gets to some that are having trust issues.”
The actor’s vaccine pitch comes in the wake of over 2.8 million global deaths attributed to the virus by Johns Hopkins University.
Over 556,000 of those deaths have been inside the U.S.
Critics of the vaccines say the experimentation phase was rushed and that a reasonable person might delay or refuse them altogether.
