“Real Time” host Bill Maher chastised the Hollywood elites who gave will-smith” target=”_blank”>Will Smith< at the Academy Awards.
Maher kicked off the panel discussion Friday night by addressing what he called a “national moment” where “the whole country is paying attention to something.”
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“It exposed, I thought, a lot of aspects of this society we have which are not terribly positive — toxic masculinity, victim culture,” Maher said. “Liberal hypocrisy, I think, was the big loser.”
Will Smith. (Foto AP/Chris Pizzello)
(Foto AP/Chris Pizzello)
The HBO star asked his guests what they thought of the standing ovation Smith received. CNN legal analyst Laura Coates asked why Smith was “even there” to accept the Oscar for Best Actor instead of being escorted out.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang suggested the standing ovation occurred “because it was Will Smith” and that anyone else would have been “ushered out of there very quickly.”
“I do feel like it’s part of the job of a world-famous celebrity attending an award show to absorb mild insults directed at you and yours,” Yang said. “I ran for office and people said things around me I didn’t like, and I didn’t get up and smack anyone.”
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“These are the very people who are always talking about micro-aggressions in the workplace and how you should be, you know, not have to face an uncomfortable moment or, you know, people shouldn’t touch you or unwanted leave. Suddenly, they were okay with this,” Maher said. “It just seemed to show, to me, broken morals. Like, you really have no principles.”
“When it’s a star that you like in the service of some vague principle into intersectionality like your wife shouldn’t be insulted even in a mild way, then it’s like, well, too bad. That’s what I like. It made me feel good. So I forget my principles … It was a bad night for liberal hypocrisy,” Maher continued.
Will Smith slaps Chris Rock onstage during the 94th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on March 27, 2022. (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
(Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
The “Real Time” host railed about how the Oscars have become a “representation” of the Democratic Party.
“Why is the D so toxic? Because they look at the Oscars and they — it represents sort of, like, pandering. It represents sort of, like, where we’re not connected to everyday people … I mean, this year was a disability, gay and race, which there should be a movie made about these topics, they’re important topics, but it looks like the Oscars only do those topics,” Maher said, referring to Oscar winners Troy Kotsur, Ariana DeBose and Smith.
Yang told Maher that while campaigning in states like Iowa and Ohio, voters would “recoil” when he would say he was running as a Democrat and how they associate the Democratic Party with “this kind of insincere moralizing that condescends to them.”
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“And I think when you describe what happened the Oscars as exposing how some rules seem to apply more to some bigger than others, I think that’s part of the frustration, you know, from the folks that were reacting to me when I was on the trail,” Yang said.
Maher mocked how the “woke” define the word “violence” and how they “broadened” the definition.
“Actual violence? Not a big deal,” Maher quipped.
