Citing Homophobic Jokes, Some People Are Unhappy With Kevin Hart’s Oscar Hosting Gig

Some people are not-so-secretly wishing that Kevin Hart’s Oscar hosting gig, like Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty handing La La Land a Best Picture win, would simply be a mix-up.

On Tuesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that comedian Kevin Hart will be the host of the 2019 Oscars ceremony. Hart’s announcement came with a kind of inherent cloud: earlier that day the Hollywood Reporter published a story calling the gig the “least wanted job in Hollywood” and detailing the number of traps and pitfalls a host can fall into.

Since Hart’s announcement, however, several people have raised a problem with the choice, citing homophobic and serophobic jokes the comedian has made and tweeted in the past.

Benjamin Lee, a writer for The Guardian, tweeted out some of Hart’s homophobic standup, which has a counterpart tweet expressing the same thing.

“One of my biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay,” Hart says in his standup. “That’s a fear. Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic: I have nothing against gay people — be happy. Do what you want to do. But me, being a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will. Now with that being said, I don’t know if I handled my son’s first gay moment correctly. Every kid has a gay moment but when it happens, you’ve got to nip it in the bud!”

He continued by saying if he saw his child doing something “gay,” he’d yell, “Hey! Stop! That’s gay!”

Hart’s tweet on the same subject reads: “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice “stop that’s gay.”

https://twitter.com/KevinHart4real/status/24617158789046272

Lee also published screenshots of some of Hart’s other tweets where he says actor/director Damien Dante Wayans’ profile picture looks like a “gay billboard for AIDS” and calls his friend, producer and actor Dwayne L. Brown, a “fat fag.”

https://twitter.com/benfraserlee/status/1070413541012893696

https://twitter.com/KevinHart4real/status/7982054894

https://twitter.com/KevinHart4real/status/2780845537

Lee also wrote about Hart’s Oscar gig in The Guardian.

“Hiring Hart is an indicative misstep that highlights how homophobia, casual or blatant, is still de-prioritised in comparison with other discriminatory belief systems,” Lee wrote. “Hart’s obsession with making unfunny, disrespectful and inappropriate jokes about a community he has shown nothing but bile for along with a string of unrepentant responses to any criticism paints him as someone entirely undeserving of a spot on the Oscars stage.”

Erik Anderson, the founder and owner of AwardsWatch, tweeted about the Oscar decision, also chiding the AMPAS for its decision.

“Considering how many of the Oscars’ biggest fans are women and gay men it’s quite something for the Academy to hire a guy who beat one wife, cheated on another when she was eight months pregnant and said one of his biggest fears is his son growing up and being gay,” he wrote.

INTO has reached out to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for comment and will update when we hear back.

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