Four-Letter Word For Censorship?

Anyone catch The Oscars this past Sunday? I did. All three and a half hours of it. If you were doing something real with your life, bravo. Keep doing your thang. The ceremony itself is of no consequence. The juicy stuff comes after the show in the form of dribble that every dodo feels they need to broadcast on twitter, facebook, blogs, news sites, sky writing, town crier, graffiti, what have you. This time, a writer from The Onion tweeted that most adorable child actor ever, Quvenzhané Wallis, is a cunt. I'm a big fan of The Onion, but really? This little girl is going to be the next Annie. You just called little orphan Annie a cunt. The sun will NOT come out tomorrow, unidentified Onion writer. 

Oh sure, she totally had it coming. And she'll DEFINITELY get the biting wit of that tweet. I'm sure she'll look at it and think, "what an insightful and succinct examination into the media and the Hollywood Foreign Press."NINE. SHE'S NINE. Not to mention child actors have a 50/50 shot of being fucked up. Best case scenario, the writer was poorly satirizing America's obsession with celebs. Worst case, he's just calling a talented African-American girl a word that most people consider to be the filthiest of cuss words. 

After an hour, the tweet was taken down and the next day an apology was issued. However, now former Onion staffers are fighting back crying censorship. I didn't know that this was the first retraction The Onion had ever issued but I think it was a wise decision made by the CEO, Steve Hannah. Maybe it is taking away "editorial freedom," but there's a difference between satirizing someone, like a politician, in a funny insightful way and satirizing a nine year old, who hopefully doesn't even know what the word cunt means. The Onion's usual targets are politicians, governments, celebrities and religion--people and organizations whose actions should be examined and made fun of. 

After all this cunt business, no one is even talking about what a great job Quvenzhané did in Beasts of the Southern Wild. And no one is even talking about the original issue that the tweeter was trying to get at, which only goes to prove that shock for shock's sake is not always the best plan.