Kevin Hart's VERY Brief Stint As Host Of The 2019 Oscars....

[Michael Watkins]

homophobia in black and/or hispanic communities is the result of colonialism. agree or disagree?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

homophobia in black and/or hispanic communities is the result of colonialism. agree or disagree?

Disagree. This is just my uninformed opinion, but I see that as prejudice against a minority even more marginalized than blacks and hispanics are.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

That gets a bit problematic. With actors, we sometimes draw little distinction between what an actor says and what a character he plays says. With professional wrestlers, we usually draw absolutely no distinction.

We forget that Dwayne Johnson did not make those homophobic remarks. The Rock made them, a character he played.

We can argue whether he had any creative control or whether he could have just refused to say them. But it still comes down to drawing no distinction between the actor and the fictional character.

The Rock was very involved in his character and he knew what he was doing when he said those lines. He also could have used any other lines or insults to make fun of his opponents. This is just an excuse imo

[GozertheGozarian]

I still don't think it was sincere, and he's still telling homophobic jokes in his stand up.

[Michael Watkins]

Disagree. This is just my uninformed opinion, but I see that as prejudice against a minority even more marginalized than blacks and hispanics are.

hmmm. are they? I mean there's overlap of course. but this isn't something that increased as black people became more mainstream. i'd agree if we were talking about the trans community. but there's discrimination against black people within the gay community (not to mention gay neo Nazis). how much of an impact has stop and frisk had on gay communities? vote suppression? i'd say that they are dead even/both struggling for an unlikely equality.

[Sacred Knight]

You do know that Hart is still using homophobic material in his routines, right? It's still recent.

Personally I don't give a crap if he does it in his routines. If mean, if he were to pull a Michael Richards and have a hateful meltdown, obviously that's something else. But if we're talking your standard stand-up routine, they can and should be able to joke about anything and everything in that context. Or might as well just like to the guy who explained it better:

NSFW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwMukKqx-Os

[CliffHanger2]

homophobia in black and/or hispanic communities is the result of colonialism. agree or disagree?

Not sure but I think homophobia needs to be defined. Ginuwine was called "homophobic" for refusing to kiss a transperson on a reality show. And I'd say gays are definitely not more marginalized than blackmen. You don't hear about gay men getting shot in the back by cops while holding up a cell phone or getting lynched or castrated just for being gay. Atleast not in this country.

Straight blackmen are still last hired first fired especially for any job requiring a college degree. And I'd say this mob mentality targeting blackmen coming from the left is disturbing.

[numberthirty]

A world without forgiveness is a world that discourages remorse. And that's a world that will progressively deteriorate. (There are plenty of unsavory groups waiting with open arms for those disposed of by "polite society".)

And I long ago lost patience for the idea that one side of a communication controls its meaning. Sometimes a person's apology will be insincere (honestly most internet apologies are, they're simply damage control at this point) and it's fair not to accept it. And sometimes a peson's apology is sincere, empathetic, heartfelt, and the other person is unreasonable, and it's not fair to not accept it . . . and frankly constitutes abuse at a certain point.)

In any case, someone repeatedly told (commanded) to apologize is in a lose-lose situation. Anything that comes after that is "only because they were forced to" and therefor not seen as sincere.


People need to decide if they want apologies to demonstrate understanding, empathy, and growth, or if it's just score keeping in some pointless game we're all stuck in.

Luckily, no one is talking about creating such a world.

That said, I ain't about to trip all over myself to decide that someone who is essentially saying "That's the extent of the apology I have decided is needed." has squared what they need to apologize for.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

We aren't that far removed from the 2000's when the biggest rapper in the world (and probably most mainstream rapper ever) was dropping the homophobic f word in nearly every track and whenever he wanted to go at his rivals. And this was very public mainstream stuff.

Speaking of public, mainstream homophobia, don't forget the remark in the Spider-Man movie from 2002 during the wrestling sequence. "That's a cute outfit. Did your husband give it to you?" at the 2:20 mark.

Is this going to come back and haunt Marvel? Should the movie be banned/edited?

[Powerboy]

Speaking of public, mainstream homophobia, don't forget the remark in the Spider-Man movie from 2002 during the wrestling sequence. "That's a cute outfit. Did your husband give it to you?" at the 2:20 mark.

Is this going to come back and haunt Marvel? Should the movie be banned/edited?

You'd have to literally ban the past. I can remember an episode or two of "Smallville" where Clark seemed embarrassed that someone joked he might be gay because that's more embarrassing than being an alien from another planet or the movie "Teen Wolf" where someone thought the main character might be gay but, thankfully, what a relief to find out he was only a werewolf.

Unfortunately, that sort of "casual bigotry" against homosexuality was rampant and, well, casual.

Hell, I remember being equally irritated at the line from the movie "Semi-Tough" from, I think, 1978, where the Burt Reynolds character casually says, "We don't really like Football that much. We just like taking showers with n*****s". What was even more infuriating was that the theater erupted into laughter.

But there's a flipside. Mel Brooks laughed at the idea that "Blazing Saddles" could be done today. Although the movie was mocking racism and bigotry, the political correctness of today would never allow certain words to be used or even implied or certain jokes even as parody. Likewise, Mark Twain is regarded as a racist in many circles because his 1850s concepts even at their best would be racist in 2018.

There are things in the past that make me cringe. But you might as well just ban the past, period, once you start down that road.

[Star_Jammer]

Speaking of public, mainstream homophobia, don't forget the remark in the Spider-Man movie from 2002 during the wrestling sequence. "That's a cute outfit. Did your husband give it to you?" at the 2:20 mark.

Is this going to come back and haunt Marvel? Should the movie be banned/edited?

Why would it haunt Marvel and not Sony?

Don’t answer that, btw. I already know why.

[Immortal Weapon]

We aren't that far removed from the 2000's when the biggest rapper in the world (and probably most mainstream rapper ever) was dropping the homophobic f word in nearly every track and whenever he wanted to go at his rivals. And this was very public mainstream stuff.

He still uses that word in his latest work. He don't care. A lot of rappers still use the word freely in their music.

[Username taken]

The thing about the Kevin Hart thing is, I don't support his using the word at all, but he's been called out and he's apologized. Note that his being called out for this isn't a recent thing, neither was his apology. The Academy (and large parts of the media) just weren't paying attention

Calling for him to apologize again...and again...and again...becomes rather tiresome. You either accept the apology or you don't, but to keep going back to it is rather redundant.

[Username taken]

You'd have to literally ban the past. I can remember an episode or two of "Smallville" where Clark seemed embarrassed that someone joked he might be gay because that's more embarrassing than being an alien from another planet or the movie "Teen Wolf" where someone thought the main character might be gay but, thankfully, what a relief to find out he was only a werewolf.

Unfortunately, that sort of "casual bigotry" against homosexuality was rampant and, well, casual.

Hell, I remember being equally irritated at the line from the movie "Semi-Tough" from, I think, 1978, where the Burt Reynolds character casually says, "We don't really like Football that much. We just like taking showers with n*****s". What was even more infuriating was that the theater erupted into laughter.

But there's a flipside. Mel Brooks laughed at the idea that "Blazing Saddles" could be done today. Although the movie was mocking racism and bigotry, the political correctness of today would never allow certain words to be used or even implied or certain jokes even as parody. Likewise, Mark Twain is regarded as a racist in many circles because his 1850s concepts even at their best would be racist in 2018.

There are things in the past that make me cringe. But you might as well just ban the past, period, once you start down that road.

As you rightly pointed, "casual bigotry" against homosexuality was very rampant until rather recently. We still had the Hangover sequel and lots of 2000s comedies and media in general feature a metric TON of homophobic and transphobic content.

Now, I'm not at all defending Hart but getting outraged about it now (almost 10 year after) is kind of a waste of time.

Even Saturday Night Live (which has a rather liberal POV) made fun of the entire situation. We're starting to assess people with unrealistic standards (like taking a man to task for things he said when he was 14 years old).

Not to mention I don't know a single straight male comedian, that hasn't made what could be termed 'problematic jokes" as it pertains to sexuality and doubly so for black comedians. As Michael Che put it, the only black comedian that could perhaps pass this test is in jail serving 3-10 years.

[Marvelgirl]

homophobia in black and/or hispanic communities is the result of colonialism. agree or disagree?

Are you sure it is colonialism. Quite a large number of Hispanic and Blacks are Christians. Hispanics are catholics, Blacks are Pentecostals. The bible has strong views of Homosexuality that most non Christians and liberals usually say is homophobic.