The 2019 Oscars are currently hiring for the role of show host. Comedian Kevin Hart was announced earlier this week as entertainment for the star-studded evening in Hollywood, but he has since voluntarily resigned from the post. The reason won’t shock you.
Activists and quasi-journalists went to the trouble of finding distasteful tweets from Hart dating back nearly a decade, an online mob formed demanding penance, and Hart “passed” rather than “feed internet trolls and reward them” in a video statement delivered on Instagram.
Kevin Hart did the right thing here, and a few different lessons can be learned from his ordeal.
The since-deleted 2011 tweet that put Kevin Hart in this situation read, “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughter’s doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay’.” Ha-ha, very funny, Kevin.
Well, not really. It’s more than a bit off-color, but does it really matter? Hart’s tweet has been billed repeatedly as a homophobic statement. My Southern grandfather made homophobic remarks, Kevin Hart makes jokes, which is what this was. Does anyone really think Hart would smash a wooden doll house over a child’s head or condone such violent acts by anyone in his audience? Or is it possible his tongue is just placed deeply in cheek?
The Oscars have faced backlash in years past for a lack of racial diversity, thus the annually recurring hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. The Academy phoning its recently hired black superstar host and delivering an ultimatum to him for an apology or dismissal from the job certainly doesn’t solve any of its problems with race.
A brief scan of Kevin Hart’s comments on the Instagram post announcing his recusal from the event highlights a divide in Hollywood we don’t often hear about. Numerous black actors, comedians, and musicians are lined up behind Hart. Nick Cannon wrote, “We with you regardless!!! You know we feel about people trying to control us anyway!!” Cedric the Entertainer joined in with a simple, “Stand Up Kev,” and Damien Wayans offered, “Much love & respect always, REGARDLESS.”
Hollywood is not a political or cultural monolith, and the broad support of Hart shows a fracture in a coalition generally considered to be progressive and unified.
A saga like this calls to mind the recent “Hidden Tribes” report that correctly pointed out the chasm that exists between those who attend the church of political correctness and those who do not. The country is not simply left and right, the report says, but a range of less-radical subgroups exhausted by the true believers on the fringes.
The “woke” community is far from what you see online, which is characterized as a younger cohort led by intersectional people of color. It’s generally a movement of affluent, highly educated whites dominating the space of “progressive activist,” with only a fraction of African Americans in the survey sample represented by those views.
Being an intersectional ally to people of color, in reality, looks something like this: a white activist berating a black man and telling him he gets no second chance and also apparently has to volunteer for LGBTQ causes.
Kevin Hart is wrong. What he said was wrong. He does deserve a second chance but saying “I’m sorry” doesn’t buy him that second chance.
He needs to prove that he is truly sorry. He needs to become an advocate for the LGBTQ community. He needs to help end the hate.
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) December 7, 2018
Kevin Hart’s response to this has been nothing if not blunt.
“The same energy that went into finding those old tweets could be the same energy put into finding the response to the questions that have been asked years after years after years,” he said, referencing a Rolling Stone interview from 2015 where he distanced himself from those exact same tweets. Hart also pointed out that critics are constantly looking for reasons to be angry, and then he stepped down from the job he knew would be taken away regardless.
Our popular culture does not currently make room for forgiveness and the extension of the benefit of the doubt. Only after all of this did he offer a simple and seemingly sincere apology.
I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscar’s….this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.
— Kevin Hart (@KevinHart4real) December 7, 2018
It is commendable that Hart voluntarily tweeted an apology after being effectively pushed out of a performer’s dream job in Hollywood. The kind of penance the cultural Left requires is both humiliating and a dead-end road, and he was correct in pointing it out while maintaining goodwill to those his joke offended.
It’s disheartening to say, but the times we live in may require more personal resolve and unapologetic authenticity, not less. We gain nothing from requiring celebrities, friends, or family to issue canned and insincere apologies for their differences in opinion. Kevin Hart approached this controversy with his heart on his sleeve and a long record of more sincere comments on the issue of homosexuality and parenting.
Good for him for knowing that nothing more could be done here — and as usual, shame on the Academy.
Stephen Kent (@Stephen_Kent89) is the spokesperson for Young Voices and host of Beltway Banthas, a Star Wars & politics podcast in D.C.
