YUCK: News Corp Gave Isabel Lucas A Cover Profile & Platformed Her Anti-Vax Garbage

If you were wondering what Isabel Lucas has been up to since she spewed her anti-vax garbage at the height of the pandemic in 2020, turns out she’s doing just fine. According to a News Corp profile on her anyway, which shines a light on why Lucas “risked it all to reveal her anti-vaxxer status”. Sure, lets glorify someone for spouting rhetoric that actively hurts vulnerable people, shall we?

The Daily Telegraph published the profile of Lucas on Friday, in which the interviewer makes it clear the publication itself is pro-vaccine. While I’m sure it is (and at this point, most workplaces have to be in order to keep functioning during a pandemic), you have to wonder why it would then platform Isabel Lucas’ views. Because yes, they are still the same as they were nearly three years ago.

The profile introduces Lucas as “back from the brink of being cancelled” and it sounds a lot like a redemption arc she doesn’t deserve.

Lucas says she still isn’t vaccinated in the interview, and then goes on to co-opt language associated with racial and gender diversity to justify being anti-vax.

“Everyone is finally talking about diversity and inclusion, and it’s such a wonderful thing to celebrate,” she says.

“But how does that really play out in real life?

“The diversity of choice is yet to be included, in my experience.”

FYI, anti-vax is not an identity like being of a certain race, sexuality, or gender is. How diversity plays out in “real life” is it normalises the existence of marginalised people who are otherwise ignored and othered by groups in power. Using language associated with these groups to try and make some kind of comparison with anti-vaxxers is BS at best, downright offensive and trivialising of these groups’ experiences at worst. And no, the interview does not call out Lucas for making such false connections.

Sorry, I’ve just discovered Isabel Lucas is playing Marie Curie in a film? Does she know what Marie Curie did and that it had absolutely nothing to do with alkaline water or bone broth?

— Eliza Barr (@ElizaJBarr) August 20, 2020

However, the interviewer does seem to genuinely try to interrogate Lucas for spreading rhetoric that “might have caused harm to someone else”.

Does Lucas give a legitimate answer? No. Instead she says we need more “inclusion” in discussions about COVID, which is exactly the opposite of what she practices by advocating against vaccines, which vulnerable people need others to get if this world is to be safe for them.

Lucas continuously says she is coming from a place of love and inclusion when she argues against vaccines, even though its through love and inclusion of immunocompromised, disabled, elderly or First Nations people that we should all be vaccinated against COVID in the first place.

We’re coming into a fourth wave of COVID here in Australia. COVID cases have exploded, hospitalisations are skyrocketing and dozens of people are dying every day.

COVID-19 weekly update – Friday 11 November 2022

In the 7 days to 4pm Thursday 10 November:

-19,800 new cases of COVID-19 have been recorded: 8,392 rapid antigen tests (RATs) and 11,408 PCR tests
-22 lives lost pic.twitter.com/axp37c5u6S

— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) November 11, 2022

Not only is it gross to publish a story right now about Isabel Lucas’ apparent “sacrifice” when people are dying from the spread of this disease, it’s also dangerous because we’re at a time where complacency is high and people want to pretend the pandemic is behind them.

Now is not the time to publish puff pieces on anti-vaxxers, nor is it ever. And honestly, how “cancelled” can someone even be if they’re still appearing in media shoots and being asked to share their beliefs?

This idea that Lucas is making a comeback means nothing because she never left. She and other anti-vaxxers continue to spread their beliefs, and its vulnerable people that pay.

Image: Stellar