Tyrese calls out Chris Rock for dissing Jada Pinkett-Smith at Oscars

Mar 02, 2016, 09:57

After earning over $65,000, we'd say his daughters did pretty well. One of those years, Sidney (Poitier) didn't put out a movie.

Rock gave Hollywood plenty of laughs. He also questioned Jada Pinkett Smith's "boycott" of the Oscars. From the environment to racism, from gender to LGBT community, sexual exploitation of kids to press freedom: the 88th Academy Awards turned out to be one of the most politically bristling ceremonies of recent times, a far cry from our own award nights driven by item numbers and poor jokes. In this sense, diversity is more than a black and white issue. Its manifestations were two-fold: First was the social media hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, which started in early 2015 before that year's awards due to an overwhelming number of nominees being white. "At 1:57 a "man on the street" finally mentions Asians & Hispanics". I think the only African-American comic who could have pulled it off in a way that would have been completely mind blowing was Richard Pryor, and unfortunately, he's no longer with us.

"As Chris mentioned in his monologue, "... if they nominated hosts, I wouldn't even get this job. Following it up by accusing Hollywood of only being "sorority racist" seemed unnecessarily gentle. "It's like - 'We like you, Rhonda, but you're not a Kappa.' That's how Hollywood is".

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But Rock did not ignore the issue - his humor was interspersed with serious statements, like those of other black leaders who have appealed for Hollywood to be more inclusive in hiring and casting minorities. Presenters represented a wide range of ethnic groups, from Sofia Vergara and Priyanka Chopra to Byung-hun Lee and Kevin Hart. It also led the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to announce sweeping changes meant to increase diversity in its membership - changes that the academy's president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, made reference to as she called on the industry to join in creating change.

I'm referring, of course, to that awkward-ass moment where host Chris Rock trotted out a trio of Asian children on to the stage to make cheap joke about Asians being good at math. Gonzalez Inarritu won last year for "Birdman" and won again this year for "The Revenant". Everyone sort of expected Chris to come out and talk about the Oscars So White controversy; the fact that only white people were nominated in the acting categories and that people of color, for the most part, were underrepresented in every category.

Streaks, broken and extended, dominated much of the evening, with an expected best actress win to Brie Larson for her breakout performance in the mother-son captive drama "Room" and a best supporting actress win for Swedish actress Alicia Vikander for the transgender pioneer tale "The Danish Girl".

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This year's competition did not appear as heated as in some past Oscars.

"Hey! Well, I'm here at the Academy Awards - otherwise known as the white People's Choice awards", he said, after joking that the introductory montage had at least 15 black people. Let's hope that one is enough for him.

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