We Must Get Julianna Margulies Written Out of 'The Morning Show'

Maybe saying the most racist and insane things about Palestine should be a problem in Hollywood!

Apple TV

Today, I am launching an important campaign that I hope as many people as possible join. It’s a campaign about sticking to the values we hold dear; about demanding more from the powerful; about safeguarding some of our most precious commodities; in short, about doing the right thing.

This campaign has one goal and one goal only: to get Julianna Margulies written off the Apple TV+ comedy classic The Morning Show.

I can already hear you scoffing. But I am not joking when I say that we will have struck a decisive blow for a better society if we successfully ensure that Julianna Margulies doesn’t return to The Morning Show.

Let me explain.

First of all, this country—this world, really—needs The Morning Show. No program has brought me more entertainment over this last terrible year than this trainwreck of a “drama.” When Reese Witherspoon went into space?? When Billy Crudup randomly started singing a duet with his crazy mom? When Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm had the most hilarious sex scene of the last 15 years? The finale????? Perfection. Not good, but perfect. The Morning Show is objectively terrible but somehow glorious. There is nothing more ridiculous, more shoddily constructed, and more addictive on television.

And yet. My ability to watch The Morning Show is now threatened by the continued presence of Julianna Margulies, who plays famous TV lesbian Laura Peterson. Laura gets together with Bradley Jackson (played by Witherspoon in one of the worst performances you will ever see) in Season 2. In Season 3, they break up and then get back together, and then Laura yells at Bradley for reasons I will not give away here (seriously, the reasons are way too stupid to recount) and then the season ends.

Margulies and Witherspoon have whatever the opposite of chemistry is (physics? IDK I’m not a scientist) and watching them attempt to pretend to be into each other is painful. But I would have accepted a Season 4 Laura storyline because The Morning Show turns my brain into a Joe Biden-like sludge and I am too weak to protest.

HOWEVER. That was before the events of November 21, 2023.

On that day, Julianna Margulies went on a podcast and delivered one of the vilest monologues I have ever heard from a celebrity. Surprise surprise, it was about Palestine.

The Hollywood Reporter headline should give you some idea:

Yyyyyyyyep.

Here’s some of what she said (again from THR, emphasis mine):

After Israel was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, Margulies expressed her sadness that Black and LGBTQ people were, in her estimation, not supporting Israel when it retaliated. [...]

“I’m the first person to march [for] Black Lives Matter. When that happened to George Floyd, I put a black screen on my Instagram, like I ran to support my Black brothers and sisters,” Margulies said, sounding exasperated.

She added, “When LGBTQ people are being attacked, I run. I made a commercial for same-sex marriages with my husband in 2012.”

[…]“It’s those kids [who use gender-neutral pronouns] who are spewing this antisemitic hate that have no idea if they stepped foot in an Islamic country. These people who want us to call them they/them or whatever they want us to call them — which I have respectfully really made a point of doing, like, be whoever you want to be. It’s those people that will be the first people beheaded and their heads played [like] a soccer ball. Terrorists who don’t want women to have their rights, don’t want LGBTQ people … this is who you’re supporting?”

Later in the episode, Margulies returned to her notion that some in the Black community were not sufficiently supportive of Israel or had been engaging in antisemitism. “You know, there was a film being shown by this Black lesbian club on the Columbia campus and they put up signs that said, ‘no Jews allowed,'” Margulies said in an apparent reference to a New York Post story about the LionLez group at Columbia University disinviting Zionists from a film night. “And as someone who plays a lesbian journalist on The Morning Show, I am more offended by it as a lesbian than I am as a Jew, to be honest with you.”

Margulies pivoted to the Civil Rights Movement and said that “the Jews were the ones that walked side by side with the Blacks to fight for their rights. And now the Black community isn’t embracing us and saying we stand with you the way you stood with us? Jews died for their cause. Where’s the history lesson in that? Who’s teaching these kids?”

She added, “Because the fact that the entire Black community isn’t standing with us, to me, says they don’t know, or they’ve been brainwashed to hate Jews.”

Like I said, despicable stuff. Racist and queerphobic and also just weird (the part about identifying as a lesbian because she plays one on TV? Huh?) Margulies issued a vague apology, but come on now, this is clearly what she thinks.

This is where the wider world actually comes into it. (I told you it would.) In this country, supporting Palestine is often one of the most difficult things people can do. That goes for Hollywood as well; people have been repeatedly punished over the past few months for the crime of speaking out against Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of celebrities have said the wildest pro-Israel shit and paid exactly zero price.

Maybe that needs to change! Maybe you should not be allowed to get away with saying the most disgusting possible stuff just because you are saying it in connection with supporting Israel. Maybe it should be a little more socially unacceptable to be this vicious and gross about Palestine (and Black people and queer people and women, I should add!)

For me, what that comes down to is: I struggle to see how I could watch The Morning Show, a show I enjoy, if Julianna Margulies is still on it. It would show that there are no consequences for smearing Palestinians and the people who support them. That’s not a step I think I can take right now.

Instead, The Morning Show should do the right thing. Laura Peterson could be written out of the show with absolutely no hassle. She’s not important to the story! We can do without her very easily. And she would remove the ghastly shadow that currently hangs over this iconic television series.

So there is my campaign: get Julianna Margulies written off The Morning Show. Keep the integrity of this masterpiece intact. And show that you can’t talk endless shit about Palestine and expect to be treated the same as before.

Who’s with me?