For the Hollywood left, there is no forgiveness, let alone consistency. There is only a volatile mob mentality that, if dissented from, will get one’s career destroyed.
Kevin Hart, an African American comedian who has appeared in Scary Movie 3, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and other comedies, announced on Tuesday that he had been selected to host the 2019 Academy Awards, according to Huffington Post. Almost immediately, opposition to the Academy’s decision came pouring in from left-leaning journalists, many of them LGBT types. The reason: people had discovered tweets the comedian made years ago which contained gay jokes.
I wonder when Kevin Hart is gonna start deleting all his old tweets pic.twitter.com/ZbYG6SI3Xm
— Benjamin Lee (@benfraserlee) December 5, 2018
Hart was later prompted by the Academy to apologize for the tweets or risk losing his role. The comedian refused to oblige the Academy in two Instagram posts made yesterday where he said: “I’ve addressed this several times … I’ve said where the rights and wrongs were … I’m not gonna tap back into the days of old when I’ve already moved on.” He also encouraged his critics to “... take [their] negative energy and put it into something constructive.” Huffington Post reported that actor Billy Eichner and David Mack of BuzzFeed News were among those unimpressed with Hart’s response:
no apology no mention of the lgbt community, just imagine if this was about any other marginalised group pic.twitter.com/AtJ8I51tOR
— David Mack (@davidmackau) December 6, 2018
This is not good. A simple, authentic apology showing any bit of understanding or remorse would have been so simple. Like I tweeted a few weeks ago, Hollywood still has a real problem with gay men. On the surface it may not look like it. Underneath, it’s far more complicated. https://t.co/A64LsOjVc2
— billy eichner (@billyeichner) December 7, 2018
As it turns out, Hart apologized on Twitter late last night and stepped down from the host position.
Mack’s censure (“just imagine if this was any other marginalised group”) is rather interesting, considering the fact that Travon Free, a writer for Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal TBS show, faced a similar incident earlier this year when his old anti-Semitic tweets began to resurface. But for Free, there was hardly media hype at all: A few articles on smaller media sites covered it, and TBS never issued an official condemnation.
So Mack may have a point in saying the media treats some minorities worse than others, but LGBT people certainly aren’t at the bottom of that totem pole.
