The BAFTAs are embroiled in a controversy again. Their fear of offending a disabled man by being cautious that, oh, I don’t know, a guy with Tourette’s might blurt out something offensive at a taped broadcast, led to a whole room of people put in an uncomfortable spot listening to a word that is never said (by a white person) shouted loudly into the room.
This would be John Davidson shouting out “c*ck sucking whore” to a survivor of rape, for instance, or the F-word at a gay man who had been gay-bashed. Shouting the wrong word in that instance is exactly what Tourette’s Syndrome is. Your brain pushes out the word you know you aren’t supposed to say. It’s a strange situation in this case because it wasn’t his fault, and yet, why should the people who have to suck it up be Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, not to mention everyone else in the audience and on stage?
Here is Graeme O’Neil running it down.
John Davidson, who is the subject of the film I Swear, was also seen clapping enthusiastically when the film’s star, Robert Aramayo, won. It was quite the moment. Aramayo’s speech was spectacular in how he called out Ethan Hawke specifically to tell him how much a speech Hawke gave once meant to him:
The moment has been ironically ruined as Tourette’s caused Davidson to blurt out the N-word. These are Good White Liberals who seek to never offend a single person and severely punish those who step out of line, so it was adding insult to injury, many there believed, when a rationalization, explanation, and an hour into the show. What do Good White Liberals say in such a situation? Do they apologize and offend people with Tourette’s? Do they not apologize and offend everyone else by essentially saying, suck it up even though in any other instance a person’s entire career would be destroyed?
Many on X are saying racism is racism no matter what, even in the case of Tourtette’s. But is it really? Is it just the word itself, which is used often among the Black community and heard often in our culture, just never by white people, racist if there is no intent of racism? They would say yes, that the impact matters more than the intent. It’s hard to argue against that when you see it shouted out at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo. You see the harm, even if for a second, and yet, there was nothing Davidson could do about it.
So then the question becomes, should they have allowed him to attend, knowing he might blurt out the worst thing a person can say inside a packed theater on a taped television broadcast? I think so. What if someone were disabled and could not stop passing gas, for instance? Would they allow them to attend? Probably not.
The intense policing of thought and speech has greatly dampened storytelling in Hollywood. It is fear of offending that drives that fear. These people are so extreme that they police every single word that comes out of our mouths every second of every day. So it is the height of irony that it would blow in their faces like this, it must be said.
When Paul Thomas Anderson accepted the award for Best Film, he gave a good speech — a humble speech — but he also said Let’s keep making movies without fear. To me, that was the mass delusion suffered by those in the bubble. They have nothing to fear except fear itself, except themselves, the culture they built so as not to offend a single person. That’s why they’re in this mess.
They are the side with blacklists (just for voting for Trump, or even being friends with Trump supporters is a major thoughtcrime in that world). So it’s ironic to me that PTA, thoughtful and humble though his speech was, doesn’t get that. None of them do. I know what he meant, of course, that artists should fear a “fascist” regime. He doesn’t have to say it. His movie says it for him. But it’s a mass delusion.
When Donald Trump accidentally sent out a racist meme of the Obamas and eventually took it down, that was still interpreted by all involved as extreme racism, even if it wasn’t intentional. Trump doesn’t have the excuse of a disability, except being perhaps too impatient or too old to have watched it all the way through. But regardless, the idea was that since so many people saw it, harm was done, and I expect that’s the same thing now. The harm was done, no matter the intent.
I do believe intent matters, even if we don’t live in a time where it does. It has to. We have to be able to give people — even Trump — the benefit of the doubt. Nothing has destroyed this country more than our decision to abandon intent. But to repeat, no, I don’t think Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo should have to stand there and have the N-word shouted at them, intentionally or not, and Trump should not have shared that meme, intentionally or not.
To me, the mistake was their fear of offending the disabled community by being practical and reasonable and realizing, yeah, maybe this could go really wrong for us since this thing is on television and a lot of people will be there. Even if they couldn’t conceive of it going quite that wrong, why take the risk? Because they didn’t want to become the bigger story of sounding like assholes for not inviting the subject of the film. They want to be good and be seen as good.
And yet, their history chases after them in this case, lest we forget the select juries brought in for a few years to make them seem less racist by selecting the “correct” nominees. Sometimes your good intentions can be your undoing, and in this case, I think that’s exactly what happened. They had no idea that was how Tourette’s would manifest itself, and the whole thing meant Davidson had to leave anyway. It seems to me, as per the usual, they have a harder time dealing with reality than just about anything else.
I thought the speech of the night belonged to Ryan Coogler, who accepted the award for Best Screenplay. What a lovely idea and a lovely speech:
It is also a reminder of how much things have changed because back in the 1970s, this whole thing would have been a Monty Python sketch. Humor is often found in just these kinds of situations where the worst possible thing happens, and no one knows what to do about it. No one in that room is a racist, I think we can safely say — which is why it almost spilled over into the ridiculous.
I loved Sinners, as you know. No one has advocated harder for that movie this year. I think it should be winning all of the awards, and it deserved better. The fault lies squarely on those who knew something might go wrong and went ahead and flirted with disaster anyway. One thing people who produce television broadcasts know — there are things you can’t say.
The BAFTAs were the subject of a controversy back in 2001 when Russell Crowe wanted to read a poem and was told he couldn’t, and he physically threatened some guy backstage. That would ultimately cost him his second Oscar for A Beautiful Mind.
