The Onion Apologizes to Quvenzhané Wallis?

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Patrice Ellerbe, Staff WriterLast Modified: 00:41 a.m. EDT, 3 March 2013

Quvenzhané Wallis, Photo Courtesy of Disney ABC Television GroupUnited States - As viewers were glued to their television screens during the Oscars on Sunday night, “Americas Finest News Source," The Onion, issued an apology to 9-year-old Best Actress nominee, Quvenzhané Wallis. The site posted an offensive slur on their Twitter page, towards Wallis.

During the live broadcast of the Academy Awards ceremony, a site contributor suggested, “Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a cunt right? #Oscars2013."

The Onion’s CEO, Steve Hannah, issued a letter on the false news outlets Facebook page, apologizing for the post and claimed immediate action would take place.

According to the Huffington Post, the letter reads: “On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude an offensive- not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however, biting.”

After being criticized by followers and other Twitter users, the tweet was deleted about an hour after being posted. According to the news source, Huffington Post, Hannah has confirmed they have “instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again”. However, a situation like this should not have occurred at all. Bashing and degrading a 9 year-old girl is horrendous behavior. Hannah claims the persons responsible have been dealt with accordingly.

In the past, The Onion is has not confronted controversy in this way. As the site is humorous, it typically addresses conflicting situations in a not so serious way as they did in 2011 when a shooter in Washington, DC was on the loose. The parody site said, “This is satire. That’s how this works”.

Although the site finds humor out of serious situations at times, there is no excuse as to why anyone should attack a child, especially during such an extravagant evening. Not many children are nominated for awards as elite as an Oscar.

Follow Patrice Ellerbe on Twitter
Twitter: @nahmias_report Staff Writer: @PatriceEllerbe
 
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Pop Quiz

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1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five World Cup champions.

3. Name fifteen famous historical figures.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.

5. Name five Academy Award winners for Best Actor and Actress from the 1950's.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remembers the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They're the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Now here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. Name three teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson?

The people who make a difference in your life aren't the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They're the ones who care.

Editor-in-Chief: @AyannaNahmias
LinkedIn: Ayanna Nahmias

Tarsem Singh | The Fall

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Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 00:45 AM EDT, 13 June 2012

The Fall, Photo Still 4 by Tarsem SinghTarsem Singh, 51, born in Jalandhar, Punjab to a Punjabi Sikh family, is the acclaimed director of The Cell, and has created in his movie The Fall, a moving and seamless portrait of mundane life in a 1915 Los Angeles hospital inhabited by rich and mercurial characters.

This movie is filled with a visually sumptuous fantasy world of exotic bandits, evil tyrants, dream-like palaces and breathtaking landscapes.

Finished in 2006 it was later released in theaters in 2008 with music by Krishna Levy. The costume designer is Academy Award®-winner Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker’s Dracula). The Fall was shot on location in South Africa, India and many other countries.

After only viewing clips and trailers, the cable provider in our area finally added this extraordinary movie to its content offering. Words cannot adequately describe how magnificently Singh conceptualized this film.

It is in equal measure ludicrous and heart wrenching as viewers cheer for the heroes and marvel at the ­wondrous ability the young Romanian actress Catinca Untaru possesses but which many adults have lost, the power to imagine a world unfettered by the laws of reality.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO0LYcCoeJY]

The framework of the story centers on the desire of the protagonist, Roy Walker, to commit suicide using the young girl, who is also a patient, as an unwitting accomplice. A stuntman by profession, he is paralyzed from a fall after performing a jump scene in his first film, and is now bedridden. He begins to tell Alexandria played by Untaru, an epic story which he will only continue if she agrees to get him pills with which he can overdose.

Tarsem's "The Fall" is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. Tarsem, for two decades a leading director of music videos and TV commercials, spent millions of his own money to finance "The Fall," filmed it for four years in 28 countries and has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.

It tells a simple story with vast romantic images so stunning I had to check twice, three times, to be sure the film actually claims to have absolutely no computer-generated imagery. None? What about the Labyrinth of Despair, with no exit? The intersecting walls of zig-zagging staircases? The man who emerges from the burning tree? To the scene of the monkey, Wallace, chasing a butterfly through impossible architecture, "The Fall" is beautiful for its own sake. ;(Source: Roger Ebert review for the Sun Times)

Watch an interview with the director below and I highly recommend readers to rent or buy this movie and lose yourself in an alternate reality worthy of distraction.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOqSHKLrVC0&feature=relmfu]

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Twitter: @nahmias_report Editor: @ayannanahmias

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