The daughter of late, legendary film director Stanley Kubrick — The Shining, Space Odyssey: 2001, Dr. Strangelove, etc — is on board with extremist groups like the Proud Boys, Boogaloo, and QAnon, according to a Wednesday report in the Daily Beast.
Vivian Kubrick is reportedly largely estranged from her family and largely known for her activities as a Scientologist. She is also apparently on Twitter, where she recently referred to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates as a “bioterrorist,” repeatedly lied about the science behind the novel coronavirus and vaccines, and earlier this month circulated a pamphlet titled “The Boogaloo and You.”
Boogaloo refers to a loosely organised anti-government, pro-gun movement preparing for a second American Civil War, which is primarily popular on the far right. In fairness to Kubrick, the pamphlet’s demands mostly consisted of demands for criminal justice reform, the abolishment of federal police and security agencies and the war on drugs, and restoration of rights like the re-enfranchisement of felons — the more palatable beliefs of some Boogaloo adherents, whose ranks also include armed militants and supremacists. If there’s any doubt where Kubrick is coming from, though, the Daily Beast reported she also promoted discussion groups for QAnon (the pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theory that believes the Democratic Party is a front for a cabal of Satanic child sex traffickers) and supported the street-brawling neo-fascist group the Proud Boys, tweeting that they have “as much right to exist as any #LGBTQ group.”
Her father “was from Bronx NYC, incredibly sophisticated man, but I know he would have dug PBs sentiments,” Kubrick added.
Kubrick may be down with theorizing that world affairs are secretly controlled by the pedophilia mafia, but she has drawn the line at moon landing denialism. She tweeted in 2016 that speculation her famous father secretly filmed the Apollo landings on a sound stage somewhere were spread by “malicious cranks” and that his “artistic works are his unimpeachable defence.” Kubrick is half-Jewish and has attacked anti-Semitism, according to the Daily Beast, but has also referred to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust as “hapless” and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about “globalists” and the billionaire activist George Soros.
Stanley Kubrick’s last film was Eyes Wide Shut, which focuses on star Tom Cruise’s discovery of a cult-like secret society that throws orgies as either an elaborate occult ritual or just for fun. That movie, along with his other works like The Shining, has long attracted the attention of conspiracists who see in them veiled warnings about real-world conspiracies rather than allegory.
So this is a lot, to say the least. Vivian Kubrick didn’t respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment. In her current pinned tweet from Jan. 23, Kubrick wrote she would be tweeting less in the future after allowing some “truly whacky and obsessive behaviours to take hold during 2020.” She also encouraged followers to join her in spending time each week protecting civil liberties, suggesting they start with “our local Sheriff, as he/she is the assigned protector of Constitutional Law.”