Mussolini's granddaughter calls Jim Carrey 'a bastard' over satirical cartoon of the fascist dictator
Jim Carrey's penchant for drawing satirical cartoons of significant political figures has seen him earn notoriety on social media, and the actor ensures he shows no favoritism when it comes to who he targets — he's drawn caricatures of Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, the high school students involved in the spat with the Native American elder in Washington, and of course, President Donald Trump.
However, the subjects of his cartoons usually don't respond back, or at least, that's what he must have thought until this last week. On Saturday, March 30, Carrey shared his drawing of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta Pettaci.
The image showed both Mussolini and Pettaci hanging by their legs after they were executed in 1945, and he posted the tweet with a caption of, "If you’re wondering what fascism leads to, just ask Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta."
Mussolini was the founder of Italian Fascism and the Italian Fascist Party who quickly went on to consolidate his position as the leader of the country after his election as Prime Minister by dropping the pretense of democracy and establishing a dictatorship.
Under his rule, he outlawed labor strikes and eliminated political opponents, siding with Adolf Hitler and sending the country into war under the Axis banner. But after Italy suffered heavy losses and it was apparent they would come out on the losing side, Mussolini tried to flee to Switzerland with Claretta, only to be caught and executed by a firing squad in April 1945. The bodies of the couple were then taken to Milan, where they were hung upside down at a service station to publicly confirm their demise.
Considering how almost all of his previous 10 tweets were about Trump and the Mueller report, it would be safe to assume that the execution picture was, in some shape or form, a subtle dig directed at President Trump, though it seemed to have irked someone other than the intended target. Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of the Italian dictator, took offense and responded to Carrey with: "You are a b******."
But she was not quite done after her one-liner remark. In a series of passive-aggressive follow-up tweets, she asked for Carrey to draw her caricatures of other significant historical moments including a slave being whipped, and a mushroom cloud.
She also fought with some of the other users in the comment section. "I think you’re confusing Jim Carrey with your murderous grandfather," one wrote in response to her attack on Carrey, to which she hit back, "Or maybe with some of your family..."
The reaction of Alessandra, who is an independent member of the European Parliament for Central Italy, shouldn't come as a surprise either. The Huffington Post reported how she had previously threatened to take legal action against any "offensive" image or text on social media about her grandfather and then proceeded to like several anti-semitic replies to her tweet.