The Onion Issues Rare Apology For Quvenzhane Wallis Tweet
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(Image source: The Inquisitr)
BY KERRY LEARY AND LORA VLAEVA
The satirical newspaper The Onion is in some hot water after a tweet during Sunday night’s Oscars... involving nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, a nominee for best actress. Well, here it goes...
“We hate to say it, but Quvenzhane Wallis is kind of a C***, right? #Oscars2013”
Yes, that actually happened... and discussions circulated Monday on television talk shows about the tweet.
“The joke was meant to parody how beloved she is, but many thought the language inappropriate for discussing a child.”
“I get it. it's supposed to be satirical, they take the sweet. It was totally inappropriate.”
The Daily Beast notes, Wallis is so young and innocent, she even carried a puppy purse to the Oscars. The Onion removed the tweet about an hour after posting it.. but, as expected, the tweet created quite the firestorm online. Actor Wendell Pierce tweeted:
“@TheOnion Identify the writer. Let him defend that abhorrent verbal attack of a child. You call it humor I call it horrendous.”
And some users just unfollowed The Onion’s Twitter feed...
@TheOnion Unfollowing. You guys are great when you challenge power through satire. Not when you refer to a 9 year old as female genitalia.
Following the online backlash, the Onion’s CEO Steve Hannah issued a very rare apology on his Facebook page admitting it was ‘crude’ and ‘offensive’. He talked about new Twitter guidelines for the website:
‘We have instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again. In addition, we are taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.”
Buzzfeed reports some Onion employees called the apology a ‘loss of editorial freedom’. And former Onion editor Joe garden told Buzzfeed:
"It shows they don't have faith in the writers, or in their public. (...) My reaction was, 'It wasn't a great joke, but big deal'. I saw where they were going, and the commentary was about the media construct and the Oscar hype in general.”
But not everyone thought the tweet crossed the line... it was retweeted more than 500 times before being deleted. The tweet wasn’t the only comment made Sunday night during the Oscars about the nine-year-old. Fox News reports:
“McFarlane's provocative jabs scripted throughout the telecast included … a proclamation that nine-year-old Best Actress nominee ... Wallis still has sixteen years before she's deemed ‘too old’ for George Clooney, which also attracted quite the online upset.”
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