The Onion 's Twitter feed called 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis the “c” word. The backlash was swift and harsh. Warning: The offending tweet is within this post.
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It wasn't a great year for women at the Oscars, as chronicled in the BuzzFeed post "9 Sexist Things That Happened At The Oscars." And that was a bummer.
Unfortunately, on social media there was something even more unpleasant than Seth MacFarlane's "I Saw Your Boobs" song. This tweet by The Onion took a lot of people by surprise:
After being up for an hour, the backlash gathered, and the tweet was deleted. Was it meant to be some sort of joke reflecting on how people talk about someone like Anne Hathaway? I tweeted at The Onion for comment and emailed its editor, but have not gotten a response.
During the show, MacFarlane sexualized her as well: "To give you an idea of just how young she is, it will be 16 years until she's too old for Clooney."
Apparently, the presence of a 9-year-old girl experiencing a triumphant moment brings out the ugliest side of some people. Let's hope she never finds out what The Onion wrote about her. And if she does, that she also finds out that people freaked out about it. Particularly Wendell Pierce, who played Bunk on The Wire. Take it away, Mr. Pierce:
