Oscars 2016: Chris Rock Faces Oscars Backlash

It looks as though Chris Rock’s turn as Oscars host didn’t please everyone…

It’s finally over – the 88^th Academy Awards have wrapped up, DiCaprio and pals have collected their awards and the world can go back to pretending they don’t care about the Oscars. But how did Chris Rock really do as this year’s host?

He may have been hailed as a huge success, but not a 100% hit.

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After the recent #OscarsSoWhite controversy, it was obvious that Chris Rock would have plenty to say on the matter… and it seems that particular topic provided him the perfect way to skewer his celebrity audience.

And he didn’t waste time taking aim at black actors who chose to sit this out.

“I understand you’re mad,” he said about those who chose to boycott this year’s Oscars. “I’m not hating… Jada’s mad her man Will [Smith] was not nominated for Concussion. I get it… It’s not fair that Will was this good and didn’t get nominated. You’re right. It’s also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for Wild Wild West, OK?”

But while many applauded his decision to tackle the topic of racial diversity head on, it seems that he may have undermined his point entirely… as he swiped at the Asian community with a rather misjudged joke.

“Playing on the model minority myth that Asians and Jews are good at math and academics, Rock introduced three Asian children as PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants (with one of the three having a Jewish last name.) Rock, perhaps anticipating the backlash his joke would have, brushed off his joke and said, “If anybody’s upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone, which was also made by these kids.”

And the internet doesn’t seem to have taken kindly to this joke…

Of course, that’s not the only joke that’s come under fire, with his previous comments about racial diversity cutting a little too close for some fans.

“Why are we protesting this Oscars?” he asked. “It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this ‘no black nominees’ thing happened at least 71 other times. You got to figure that it happened in the 50s, in the 60s.”

“One of those years, Sidney [Poitier] didn’t put out a movie. I’m sure there were no black nominees some of those years, say ‘62’ or ‘63. Black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time.”

“We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer,” he added. “When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.”

Many were quick to point out that there are still ‘real things to protest’ in the current political climate – especially when it comes to incidents of police violence against black Americans.

Of course, Chris Rock’s time as Oscars host is still considered a resounding success… even if it was just wide of the mark on a few occasions.

Let’s just hope next year’s Oscars aren’t quite so controversial.

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Picture Credit: Twitter, WENN