Comedian and actor Kevin Hart stepped down from his gig hosting the Oscars after the Daily Beast chided him for decade-old homophobic tweets. Although Hart has previously acknowledged the old tweets, it was not enough. Under pressure, Hart withdrew from the gig and apologized.
The unfortunate reoccurrence of the social social justice mob, this time under the guise of a rather large online publication, enforcing a stance of political correctness about a person’s past, as well as Hart’s apology, demonstrates a dangerous trend in culture.
Hart had agreed to host the Oscars until sleuths dug around on social media until they found comments they did not like.This is from a reporter at The Daily Beast.
Kevin Hart blows off the homophobic joke controversy, saying we’re fishing for negativity and dismissing it as things he said years ago.
Nowhere does he legitimize the people who were offended by them, acknowledge the harm, or apologize.https://t.co/n7aW5PY0gj
— Kevin Fallon (@kpfallon) December 7, 2018
Strangely, no one was offended by Hart’s comments last week, but as the Oscars are forthcoming in the new year, they are offended by them now — like every other online mob, they intend to make the world care. Even better, they are not only making everyone care, but they are doing the rest of us minions a favor by holding the Hollywood elite (whom they often gush over) to account. This is noble and brave, they believe.
According to Hart, Oscars officials gave him an ultimatum: Apologize or you will be removed from your post. Initially, Hart did not apologize. He wrote that he had addressed these comments before and the people who dug his hurtful comments could also dig up his previous apologies. “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. Unfortunately, Hart, pressured and exasperated, caved to the mob and not only offered his resignation to host the event but apologized yet again.
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
Hart dealt with comments he used to use in his stand-up routines. He would occasionally joke about his homophobia and how he would react if he had a gay son. In a 2015 Rolling Stone article Hart redacted this, saying, “I wouldn’t tell that joke today, because when I said it, the times weren’t as sensitive as they are now. I think we love to make big deals out of things that aren’t necessarily big deals, because we can. These things become public spectacles. So why set yourself up for failure?” That’s a rather honest assessment of oneself, is it not?
Over time, people mature and change, and Hart clearly has. Society is made up of ideas, victories, mistakes, wars won and wars lost, computers made in garages are now in our living rooms, comedians who did stand-up in their mother’s living room are now selling out Madison Square Garden. Everyone makes mistakes and grows and learns from them. The Daily Beast should have dug up Hart’s old tweets and that 2015 interview and heralded him as an example to many: “Here exists someone who owns his mistakes. Maybe we all take after his example.”
Yet this is not what happened. The ravenous history sleuths who share the same bed with the social justice online mob are akin to the Christian legalist who offers no grace, no opportunity for change, only punitive measures. Often these people don’t live up to the standard they hold everyone else to as well. Their mantra: You must always conform and pay for what you have done in the past, even if you made mistakes as a young person, even if you have changed since then.
The mob came for Kevin Hart and it will come for you and it will come for me. We are all human and make mistakes and we say and do stupid things. It does not mean that we must all live in the past, especially the long past, and to expect someone to do so is disingenuous and unkind.
Because the politically correct mob cannot do this, they should be treated as the insecure bully they are: A faction of legalistic social justice warriors who devise the demise of anyone who has made mistakes and does not currently conform to their wishes is no more group of people accomplishing a noble task then a group of schoolyard bullies harassing a peer for the reason de jure.
I wish Hart would not have given in to the online mob, though I can see why he did. The onus should not be on him to be the last man standing. Folks who live in the past, holding people to a standard they likely don’t live up to themselves, don’t deserve to be treated with disgust — only apathy and indifference.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
