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Chris Pratt recently took to Instagram to tout his Amazon Prime show's streaming stats in response to supposedly "woke" TV critics who've given it poor reviews, and people online can't roll their eyes hard enough.
Pratt is the star of Amazon Prime's The Terminal List, a military-themed drama with truly terrible reviews that has even been likened to right-wing propaganda by some critics.
And while Pratt made valiant if unconvincing attempts to deny his obvious drift toward the Christian right earlier this year, he seems to have given up on that endeavor now.
In a recent Instagram story, Pratt screenshot an article sniping at "woke critics" and touting the show's high streaming numbers from the UK's Daily Mail, a right-leaning outlet that regularly trolls liberals on both sides of the pond.
The Daily Mail's headline read:
"The new Yellowstone: Chris Pratt's new Navy thriller The Terminal List defies woke critics' scathing reviews to shoot up ratings chart with 1.6 BILLION minutes of streams."
Yellowstone, a Kevin Costner-led drama set on a ranch, is among the highest-rated shows on television and is wildly popular among conservatives, but has garnered middling reviews and very little awards attention.
Still, The Terminal List is no Yellowstone. After a rocky first season, the latter's critical reception has consistently improved year after year. By contrast, Pratt's show has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 39%.
Yet 1.6 billion streaming minutes is second only to Netflix's Stranger Things and nothing to sneeze at, and Pratt celebrated the figure with another Instagram story featuring a photo of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers touting the show's streaming numbers.
@prattprattpratt/Instagram
Pratt delving so gleefully into the terminally stupid "wokeness" debate is in stark contrast to the efforts he has made in recent months to distance himself from the right, especially its evangelical Christian wing.
Of course, those efforts fell mostly on unconvinced, deaf ears. Despite his denials, Pratt has been photographed numerous times at Los Angeles' celeb-heavy Hillsong Church, infamous for a pedophilia scandal and its virulent homophobia.
Though he denies ever attending Hillsong or being homophobic, he does proudly attend Zoe Church, led by former Hillsong member Chad Veach who executive produced a 2017 documentary that equates "sexual brokenness" to same-sex attraction.
Pratt also follows a who's-who of the fascist right-wing on Twitter, including Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson, and was photographed in 2019 wearing a shirt emblazoned with a popular far-right symbol and slogan.
Perhaps he's decided to lean into the whole right-wing culture war stuff since nobody really bought his attempts to distance himself from it anyway?
Whatever the case, Pratt's subtle railing against "woke" TV critics left many on Twitter unimpressed.
As for the show, its creator has also touted the Daily Mail article trolling critics, including it in a tweet about how he and his team don't care about critics. Okay then.