Ezra Miller was arrested in Hawaii early Tuesday for second-degree assault, the second time they’ve been arrested in the past month for similar alleged behavior. Amid reported discussions and concerns from Warner Bros.—which just released Miller’s latest film, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, and is set to release The Flash in 2023—stemming from the first arrest, it’s launching larger discussions of privilege and who gets to have their actions viewed in a sympathetic lens (along with some jokes).
According to Hawaii News Now, Miller allegedly threw a chair at a 26-year-old woman after they were asked to leave the home of an acquaintance; they were later released from custody. Earlier in the day, Miller pleaded no contest to charges that originated from their first arrest at the end of March.
Some people took to making jokes, whether it was to imagine Miller on a crime spree in Hawaii or to picture the reaction from Warner Bros. and DC executives, who already reportedly held an emergency meeting after Miller’s first arrest in Hawaii and appeared to think it best to pause all future Miller projects for the time being. Part of the joke either involved imagining Miller assaulting someone else or comparing the frequency of shark attacks in the state to the number of Miller’s alleged assaults.
Calls for Miller to get help and face career consequences also emerged.
“Ezra Miller needs help, but I think at this point, they also need to face some consequences for everything they’ve done,” @gjkcentral wrote. “This has become far too much to ignore.”
Even though others didn’t condone any of Miller’s alleged actions, they took Miller’s second arrest to speak out against misgendering Miller just because of the charges levied against them.
But Miller is also being used as an example of how privilege is painting their actions in a sympathetic light while others were vilified for similar actions. Some people pointed to the treatment Will Smith received after he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars—Smith resigned from the Academy and was banned from Academy events for 10 years, but some also called for Smith to lose his Oscar—to illustrate how different we treat an actor resorting to violence when it’s a white actor perpetuating it versus a Black actor. Others criticized the reaction to Miller from a gender lens in comparison to Amber Heard, who said that her ex-husband Johnny Depp abused her (Depp has denied all allegations), which is getting more attention this week with the start of a defamation trial involving Heard and Depp.
As Miller’s legal troubles move forward, the analysis, comparisons, and the context in which they are discussed will only deepen.
The Secrets of Dumbledore is out in theaters while The Flash is still slated to be released on June 23, 2022.