Tag: Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart Takes on the Cancel Culture

For decades comedian-actor-producer Kevin Hart has been a Hollywood box-office cash magnet.

Hart has starred in a string of successful films, including “Think Like a Man,” “Grudge Match,” “Ride Along,” “Ride Along 2,” “Central Intelligence,” and the “Jumanji” franchise.

In 2015 Time Magazine saw fit to include him on its annual Time 100 list as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In his latest film release, “Fatherhood,” Hart expands his range of character portrayals by taking on the role of a man who struggles to raise his newborn baby girl all on his own, after his wife tragically passes away shortly after giving birth.

In addition to acting, the Hollywood A-lister has also had quite a bit of experience in hosting awards ceremonies. Two major ones in which he can boast include the 2011 BET Awards and the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards.

Following his 2012 MTV host experience, an optimistic Hart appeared to be looking forward to engaging in more work as an emcee, telling the New York Times, “Hopefully after MTV, of course we’re talking Emmys, Oscars, whatever.”

A three-time “Saturday Night Live” host, Hart went on to co-host, along with Dwayne Johnson, the 2016 MTV Movie Awards.

Then in late 2018, he almost got to check another dream host gig off his wish list. It was announced that he would be the host of the 2019 Academy Awards.

The initial excitement over the announcement would be short-lived, though. The cancel culture wound up roaring into Hart’s life in a fierce way.

After 48 hours of social media outrage over some eight-year-old tweets, Hart extricated himself from host responsibilities.

In January 2019, after receiving some strong support from previous Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres, he thought about reconsidering.

However, social media activists were not about to pull back on their attacks against him. Once again Hart announced that he would not be hosting.

The 2019 Academy Awards ceremony was ultimately held minus a host.

It was refreshing when Hart recently made the decision to weigh in on cancel culture. He made headlines for remarks made during an interview with the British Sunday Times.

“When did we get to a point where life was supposed to be perfect? Where people were supposed to operate perfectly all the time?” Hart asked. “I don’t understand. I don’t expect perfection from my kids. I don’t expect it from my wife, friends, employees. Because, last I checked, the only way you grow up is from [screwing] up. I don’t know a kid who hasn’t [messed] up or done some dumb [things].”

According to Hart, because comics are too afraid of being cancelled, comedic arts have suffered a severe blow.

“You’re thinking that things you say will come back and bite you on the [posterior],” he explained, pointing out that people often misunderstand the intent of comedy practitioners.

“There’s an assumption it’s always bad and, somehow, we forgot comedians are going for the laugh,” he added.

News media and social media trolls summarily attacked and ridiculed Hart for daring to question the stifling effects of cancel culture. Strangely, many tried to do so by belittling the actor’s success.

Hart used his twitter account of 37 million followers to respond.

“I rarely talk s***… but I felt the need to today,” Hart posted. “Stop believing these headlines and read the actual articles … you guys fall for the banana in the tail pipe trick every d*** time.”

Social media saboteurs also attempted to claim that Hart is not effective at accomplishing the primary goal of a comedian; that is to simply make people laugh.

“The ‘He’s not funny’ slander is the best … I have been the highest grossing comedian in entertainment for years now … I have also been the highest grossing comedian in the box office with over 4 billion in earnings …,” Hart posted.

Hart’s Christianity has no doubt helped to anchor him in troubled times.

In 2014, during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, he recalled a time early in his career when he was financially unable to pay his rent. He leaned upon Nancy, his faith-filled mother, for help. All she would say at the time was, “Have you been reading your Bible?”

A week went by and things looked like they were going from bad to worse. But Mom kept repeating the admonition, saying, “When you read your Bible, then we’ll talk about your rent.”

Reluctant at the time, the good son nevertheless complied.

“I go home and say, ‘Man let me open this Bible up,’” Hart explained to Winfrey. “Open the Bible up, six rent checks fell out. She put all my rent checks in the Bible.”

Hart would come to realize that more than mere rent had been paid. His Savior had paid his debt to God.

After a serious car accident in September of 2019, he expressed his profound gratitude to God for refocusing his life.

In a video post on Instagram that begins with news broadcast footage reporting the details of the accident, Hart narrates the post with some powerful and heartfelt words.

“When God talks, you gotta listen,” he says. “I swear, life is funny, because some of the craziest things that happen to you end up being the things you needed most.”

“In this case, I honestly feel like God basically told me to sit down,” he says. “When you’re moving too fast and you’re doing too much, sometimes you can’t see the things that you’re meant to see. But after my accident, I see things differently. I see life from a whole new perspective.”

Hart ends the video post with words we can all cling to, saying, “… I’m thankful for God. I’m thankful for life.”

New Immersive Experience for ‘Jumanji’ Sequel

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As traditional movie theaters face increasing pressure to please prospective film-goers, theater chains are busy at work trying to reinvent themselves.

For a while now the movie industry as a whole has been trying to keep up with the cinematic luxuries that folks have been indulging in at home, which include larger and larger TV display screens, vibrant high-definition visuals, professional stereo sound systems, hyper-advanced digital technology, on-demand entertainment delivery, and on and on. Now that’s some pretty stiff competition.

Some venues have opted to go restaurant-style, serving food and beverages to patrons as they relax in cushy recliner seats. Others have included virtual reality enhancements that appeal to the visual, auditory, tactile, and even olfactory senses. Mist on the skin, wind in the hair, body in motion, sensory stimulation, among other effects, have taken things to the 4D level, entertainment-wise.

Hollywood and its trendy urban surroundings are now acting as a laboratory of sorts for a new movie theater technology imported from France called the Immersive Cinema Experience (ICE).

In the upcoming week, ICE will debut in Los Angeles with the release of the fantasy-adventure film “Jumanji: The Next Level,” which stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Danny Glover, Danny DeVito, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Awkwafina, Alex Wolff, Morgan Turner, Ser’Darius Blain, and Madison Iseman.

Although it will cost movie-goers an additional $6, the ICE-equipped theater will feature luxury motor-operated leather seats, complete with built-in cell phone battery chargers.

Unlike older technologies that have been installed in many movie theaters, ICE does not attempt to surround a theater-goer’s field of vision with a given movie’s actual action but instead uses sidewall panels to peripherally augment the impact of a cinematic scene.

The new technology utilizes both laser projection and a huge series of non-reflecting, LED-lit panels that line each side of the theater room. A post-production team in France creates custom, ambient images to be projected on the panels, and syncs them to the film. The panels display similar colors as those on the main screen to project around the audience seating area. The side walls of the auditorium display abstract images in the form of color, light, and movement that are interconnected with what is appearing in the movie on the front screen. The result for the film-goer is a flood of input at the point of each individual’s peripheral vision.

As its name indicates, the idea is to have each person undergo a full immersion experience into his or her cinematic surroundings.

CGR Cinemas, the original developer of the ICE concept, is the company that runs one of the leading theater chains in France. The ICE concept headed over to the U.S. following the movie chain’s initial launch in France two years ago. Box-office revenues reportedly doubled the standard screen revenues in France, when it was utilized in 35 ICE-equipped theaters.

Hollywood is undergoing a digital revolution that has executives of the conventional movie kind experiencing some high anxiety. According to data from the Motion Picture Association of America, 1.3 billion movie tickets were purchased in the U.S. and Canada last year, which was down from a peak of 1.6 billion in 2002.

No doubt the movie industry is in flux as streaming giants such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon continue to alter the digital entertainment landscape.

No real worries, though, for tried-and-true cinema-plex fans. Entertainment entrepreneurs and inventive artists the world-over are stepping up with forward thinking ideas that hold great promise in the cinematic field of dreams.

Fifteen Minutes of Shame

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“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

This familiar quote, which is attributed to Andy Warhol, has resulted in a modern, truncated version of the concept that everyone will eventually receive his or her time in the spotlight. It also reflects how fragile and fleeting celebrity status has become and just how fickle the present-day public has trended.

In the age of social media, though, another phenomenon has been taking shape online, and Warhol’s iconic words are being subjected to a warped parallel paraphrasing. The twisted Warhol-ism that has emerged is the following: “In the future, everyone will be forced to suffer through his or her 15 minutes of shame.”

In today’s digital world, a Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram mob is able to publicly humiliate a well known, or even not so well known, individual or group for alleged acts or statements, thereby detrimentally affecting occupation, reputation, and/or social life.

Social media shaming can result in an instantaneous career end and destructive ramifications for anyone who is the unfortunate recipient of it.

Embarrassment is an intensely negative universal human experience, which is tethered to a fundamental need to be accepted into a circle, respected by its members, and loved for who we are. The thought of losing any of these basic necessities is a terrifying prospect, and it can create a desperation within an individual or group of individuals that is unlike any other misfortune that may befall us.

For a while now, particularly within the social media realm, individuals as well as groups have been going about weaponizing social media technology via memes and bots as a means of magnifying a digital footprint and amplifying a message. This is routinely done deceptively so as to give the impression that the representative numbers are significantly greater than they actually are.

When combined with the type of hyper-political correctness that is being promulgated by various activist groups, these social media activities pose an unprecedented threat to free expression, and perhaps even more perilous, an assault on the psyche.

The latest large-scale episode of social media shaming occurred when comedic actor Kevin Hart was compelled to withdraw from hosting the 2019 Oscars. Hart pulled out of the hosting gig after he and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received the social media shaming treatment over jokes that he had posted in the distant past.

Immediately after it was publicly reported that Hart would host the industry’s most prestigious awards show, the virtual walk of shame began. Posts cited select archived comedy routines and tweets, which featured the comedian joking about trying to stop his son from becoming gay.

Reportedly, the Academy urged Hart to apologize for the past posts, but he refused, stating that he’d already apologized.

“I’ve addressed it,” Hart said in an Instagram post. “… I’m not going to continue to tap into the past when I’ve moved on and I’m in a completely different space in my life.”

Hart eventually did express contrition in a later tweet, stating, “I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.” He explained that the reason he was withdrawing from hosting duties was so that he would not “be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists.”

In a surprising twist, Ellen DeGeneres is now in the social media crosshairs. In an attempt to try and reinstate Hart as the host of the 91st Academy Awards, the daytime talk show host acted as a mediator of sorts between Hart and the Academy.

During a recent episode of her syndicated daytime talk show, one in which Hart appeared and gave his first interview on the subject, DeGeneres disclosed that she had talked with Academy officials and suggested that they bring Hart back as Academy Awards host. She also told Hart and her viewing audience that the Oscar leadership would still like Hart to be the host.

“It was an attack,” Hart told DeGeneres. “This wasn’t an accident, this wasn’t a coincidence. …To go through 40,000 tweets to get back to 2008? That’s an attack. That’s a malicious attack on my character.”

Hart added, “That’s an attack to end me. That’s not an attack to end the Oscars, that’s an attack to end me.” He continued in his expression of indignation and defense of his character.

“This was to destroy me. This was to end all partnerships, all brand relationships, all investment opportunities, studio relationships, my production company and the people who work underneath me. This was to damage the lives that had been invested in me. It’s bigger than just the Oscars. It’s about the individuals who are out there now that are finding success in damage. They’re finding success in damaging your ‘celebrity,’” Hart explained.

It turns out that in a prior stand-up routine, Hart had shared, “One of my biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay … If I can prevent my son from being gay, I will.”

In a past post, Hart had also used his Twitter account to jokingly tweet that he would hit his son with his daughter’s dollhouse if he ever caught him playing with it. He additionally told Rolling Stone in 2015 that he intended these particular jokes to be self-deprecating.

“The funny thing within that joke is it’s me getting mad at my son because of my own insecurities,” Hart said. “I panicked. It has nothing to do with him, it’s about me.”

It appears as though the digital powers that be have decided it is now Degeneres’s turn to take to the shame stage. She is presently being targeted by the social media, in part, for venturing into the truth about today’s internet culture.

“There are so many haters out there,” DeGeneres said. “Whatever is going on on the internet, don’t pay attention to them. That’s a small group of people being very, very loud.”