Comedy star Chris Rock is all set to host this year’s Oscars that are hit by outrage over the nominees’ lack of diversity, but even before it all started he opened up about being a “black” in the US.
Comedy star Chris Rock is all set to host this year’s Oscars that are hit by outrage over the nominees’ lack of diversity, but even before it all started he opened up about being a “black” in the US.
The 50-year-old actor said he admires Janay Palmer, the wife of disgraced NFL pro Ray Rice, who was punched unconscious by her husband in a hotel elevator, which probably feels same like being in America with “the” skin colour, reported People magazine.
“Mrs Ray Rice – it’s not the punch in the face that eats your soul; it’s having to defend the person that punched you in the face that eats. Oddly enough, this is what it feels like to be a black man in America,” Rock said.
The comedian said just the thought that “Barack Obama — just think he could be President is gangster.”
Rock also spoke about his family and said that he considers his parents his real-life heroes. “I had such a horrible school experience (bussed, one of the only black kids (sic) every day, bullied, etc. That picking my kids up from their mostly white school, where they’re having such a great time. It’s almost like I’m picking them up from another planet, and I am,” he said. Meanwhile, actor Will Smith says that the lack of diversity in this year’s Academy awards nomination reflects the existing “social regression” in the US.
The 47-year-old actor, who along with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith decided to not attend the Academy Awards next month following the diversity row, was on Good Morning Britain.
“We have to understand the spirit of what’s happening. This is not about us and them, it’s about we. I’m a member of the Academy, so this is a problem that we all have to solve collectively,” Smith said.
“The only reason it’s an issue this year is because it feels like a regression. So to me Hollywood is experiencing a regression that is reflective of a social regression America is experiencing. There’s something happening in our country that’s being reflected in Hollywood, that’s being reflected in the Academy,” he added.
Following his decision to boycott the ceremony, some claimed it was because he had not been nominated for his performance in Concussion but Smith clears that it is definitely not the reason. “It has nothing to do with me being nominated or not, or wanting to win awards or not. That is so frivolous. I’ve been nominated for Academy Awards and I’ve never lost to a white person. I lost to Denzel (Washington) and then I lost to Forest Whitaker,” he said. Apart from Smiths, filmmaker Spike Lee has also decided to not attend the Oscars night this year.
