Malibu Surfside News

20 | August 6, 2020 | MALIBU SURFSIDE NEWS LIFE & ARTS
malibusurfsidenews.com
Dean Cain-produced anti-Semitism
documentary wins Daytime Emmy for directing
‘Hate Among Us’ is the
follow-up to a look at the
Armenian genocide
SCOTT STEEPLETON, Editor
Round two for the Television
Academy’s 47th annual Daytime
Emmy Awards was a winner for
Malibu actor-producer Dean Cain.
“Hate Among Us,” the Popstar!
TV documentary about the rise
in anti-Semitism that Cain coproduced
with talk-show host and
longtime friend Montel Williams,
won the award for Outstanding
Directing Special Class for David
McKenzie.
The award presented July 26
is given to a single original program,
with fiction, non-fiction,
music and variety events eligible.
“It’s wonderful for this film to
be recognized by the Television
Academy, and I really hope this
film can make a difference,” Cain
told Malibu Surfside News after
the win. “Please try and see the
film, and help us stop the hate.”
When the nominations were
announced, Cain, who turned 54
on July 31, sat down with Surfside
over coffee at Starbucks
in Malibu Colony Plaza to talk
about the movie, the atrocities
against Jews and Armenians, his
support of President Trump and
the danger of “cancel culture.”
For many, the longtime Malibuite
became a household name for
playing the Man of Steel opposite
Teri Hatcher on ABC’s “Lois &
Clark: The New Adventures of
Superman” in the early 1990s.
Others may know him from his
2005-07 turn as Casey Manning,
the millionaire who buys the
Montecito Resort and Casino on
NBC’s “Las Vegas.” Since 2014,
he’s hosted the magic show “Masters
of Illusion” on The CW. And
in one of several darker roles, the
never-married father of one portrays
Scott Peterson, the young
husband who is on death row for
murdering his wife and unborn
child, in Sony Pictures Television’s
“The Perfect Husband: The
Laci Peterson Story.”
While these credits and numerous
others have gained Cain lots
of attention — including perennial
feuds over who is “the best”
Superman — the 92-minute “Hate
Among Us” (hateamongus.com)
is his first to earn such high notice
from the Television Academy.
It was nominated for two
awards, including Outstanding
Special Class Special — a recognition
for the producer.
“The subject matter is tough,
especially during these times,”
Cain said. “I was extremely happy,
and really full of hope that, by
being nominated, a lot more eyeballs
would fall on to the project.
That serves our ultimate purpose
of educating.”
While another project took the
Outstanding Special Class Special,
those awards handed out earlier
last month, Cain admitted he
was “pretty giddy” just to get the
nominations.
“I immediately changed my
resume to Emmy-nominated producer.”
“Hate Among Us” — the follow-up
to Cain and Williams’
documentary “Architects of Denial:
Genocide Denied Is Genocide
Continued” on the Armenian
genocide — connects stories of
survivors of recent violent acts
of anti-Semitism to those of the
Holocaust. It includes interviews
with descendants of those murdered
by the Nazis as well as
those who survived but still met
their fate because of their faith.
“It’s the Holocaust repeating
itself,” said Cain.
The genesis of “Hate” began
with 2017’s “Architects of Deni-
Dean Cain’s documentary
“Hate Among Us” is available
at hateamongus.com.
SUBMITTED IMAGE/POPSTAR! TV
al,” which looks at the systematic
killing of 1 million Armenians by
the Turks of the Ottoman Empire
in 1915, a quarter century before
Hitler’s state-sponsored murder
of 6 million Jews.
“What we kept finding during
the discussions of that genocide
was that the denial of that genocide
allowed other genocides to
continue and to be perpetrated,”
said Cain. “The largest one, of
course, being the Holocaust. Adolf
Hitler, during one of his early
speeches — you know, trying to
get his base rallied — when he’s
talking about his Final Solution,
said, after all, who remembers
the Armenians? That’s just paraphrasing.
But that’s what it was.
Because nobody remembered
the Armenians. They were able
to get away with this atrocity by
just denying it.”
Whether it’s a Muslim extremist
killing someone over a drawing
of Muhammad, a Turk killing
an Armenian or Hitler’s extermination
of nearly two-thirds of
Europe’s Jewish population, it
all comes from one place and one
word, said Cain.
Hate.
“Having the kind of hate in
your heart toward a person or a
group of people that you want to
kill them, if you tried to explain
it to a rational person, they’d say
Real estate broker Hassen Masri (left) takes a break for morning coffee
and conversation with actor-producer Dean Cain at the Malibu Colony
Plaza. SCOTT STEEPLETON/SURFSIDE NEWS
that just couldn’t happen,” he
said. “But then we have example,
after example, after example of
exactly that taking place. The Armenian
genocide. The Holocaust.
And it goes on and on and on.”
Cain also called out journalists’
participation “cancel culture,”
where you say something that detractors
don’t like; they whip up
support, often through social media;
the mainstream media then
deems it a “story”; and the mob is
now calling for your firing, or for
advertisers to stop doing business
with you.
A recent example: the boycott
of Goya Foods, after CEO Robert
Unanue, appearing in the White
House Rose Garden as part of
Trump’s Hispanic Prosperity Initiative,
an executive order aimed
at improving Hispanic Americans’
access to educational and
economic opportunities, praised
the president. Not rattled in the
face of criticism, Unanue later
told Fox News the boycott was
“suppression of speech” and that
he was “not apologizing.”
Said Cain of cancel culture:
“That’s McCarthyism. It’s frightening.
It’s like, ‘Not only do you
have to agree with what I’m saying,’
but if you have an alternate
opinion, then you are vilified and
they want to cancel you. They
want to take away your livelihood.”
“That is the opposite of tolerance.
That is the opposite of freedom
of speech.”
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