Jane Campion apologizes for her comments about Venus and Serena Williams at Critics Choice Awards
During her acceptance speech for Best Director, Campion called the tennis legends "marvels" before saying, they "don't play against the guys... like I have to."
Aux News Jane Campion
At Sunday night’s Critics Choice Awards, Jane Campion took home yet another trophy for The Power Of The Dog. She beat out the competition and won Best Director, further marking a path for her to win at the Academy Awards. However, a statement Campion aimed towards Venus and Serena Williams, during her acceptance speech sparked backlash from viewers.
In her speech, Campion started off by recognizing all the “incredible women” in the event venue that night. “Halle Berry, you have already done my speech… and really killed it. I loved it. You’re absolutely brilliant,” said Campion to the night’s SeeHer award recipient.
Then Campion moved on to King Richard executive producers and tennis legends Serena and Venus Williams. “What an honor to be in the room with you,” Campion said to the sisters at first, “I’ve taken up tennis—I truly have—and Will [Smith], if you want to come over and give me lessons, I would truly love it. I actually had to stop playing because I’ve got tennis elbow.”
After taking a moment to send her love to the other directors in the category or “the guys” as Campion coined them, she once again mentioned the Williams sisters before leaving the stage.
“Venus and Serena, you’re such marvels,” she remarked. “However, you don’t play against the guys, like I have to.”
Although given uproarious applause by the Critics Choice Awards crowd (with even Serena clapping heavily), many people online viewed the comment as odd and undercutting of the Williams sisters’ achievements in the world of tennis, especially since the two tennis players have played men in mixed doubles and won multiple times.
Twitter users (many of them other Black women) brought up how confusing the statement was, due to both of the Williams sisters’ many accounts of facing sexism and racism within the sport—something highlighted in the Oscar-nominated film King Richard.
In statement released this afternoon, Campion apologized to the Williams sisters saying, “I made a thoughtless comment equating what I do in the film world with all that Serena Williams and Venus Williams have achieved. I did not intend to devalue these two legendary Black women and world-class athletes.”
She added, “The fact is the Williams sisters have, actually, squared off against men on the court (and off), and they have both raised the bar and opened doors for what is possible for women in this world. The last thing I would ever want to do is minimize remarkable women. I love Serena and Venus. Their accomplishments are titanic and inspiring. Serena and Venus, I apologize and completely celebrate you.”
140 Comments
Sounds like Jane Campion was a bit of a b-i-t-c-h
god tier response
Why would a woman tell another woman, “you don’t have to deal with or compete with a bunch of men like I do”. Every woman has had to deal with being thought less of because they aren’t men. JFC.
Oh, but they literally did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)#1998:_Karsten_Braasch_vs._the_Williams_sisters
In fairness, that wasn’t something they had to do, it was a voluntary publicity stunt that they did before they had the experience to know that it was ill-conceived.And in terms of how it relates to the topic at hand, I think Campion trusted the audience to realize that she was making a joke, and that there are some pretty fundamental reasons why women competing against men in something arts-related is different from competing against men in something sports-related.
“I think Campion trusted the audience to realize that she was making a joke”Unfortunately, many bright people often mistake the general public for being bright as well.
The Williams sisters both agreed later after losing in straight sets to men that they would never want to play against men professionally. They state that they would be about 300 places down if playing against men. They changed their claim from beating any man to any man ranked outside of #350.
“Jersey Fried Chicken”?
You can take the rich white girl out of the University of Sydney…
Damn it, I was still getting my pound of flesh
I know this will land like a lead balloon, but under the circumstances (and especially based on the depth and sincerity of her apology), can’t we just chalk this up to someone being kind of flustered and excited and saying something she normally wouldn’t have in just about any other situation? People sometimes use the wrong words when they’re anxious or excited; this will be printed on my gravestone.
yeah right after she extends the same grace to sam elliot lol. celebrities should never, ever, for any reason, be handed a microphone.
I’m being forgiving about this, too. As accomplished as Campion is and as much as she’s been captaining her projects, she did look a little bit out of place in onstage with all that attention. She seemed awkward and it was an awkward speech before she got to that comment. She shouldn’t have said it, but I wouldn’t make too much of it, especially now that she’s apologized.
no! She must be SLAMMED and CANCELED and held ACCOUNTABLE and shes TONE DEAF and WHITE PRIVLEGE and some other things too but i ran out of steam and need a nap
And Benedict Cumberbatch received the BAFTA on her behalf yesterday, he’s not any better, let’s burn him at the stake too, 2 futile cancellings for the price of 1! Seriously, some of this weird energy has actually been useful when directed at truly evil people like putin and his entourage, but along with it come these idiotic thoughtless overreactions where about 0.1 square inches of an helmet forces you to apologize for what was a sincere significant gesture for peace, and suddenly is turned into the appeasement of another autocrat or just loses any potency. The 0.1 square inches in question is the white flag in the right picture below… I guess moral outrage gives you microscopic vision along with tunnel vision. You cannot defeat putin, or erdogan, or any other current monster if you keep wasting your energy cancelling those who might actually help with that. https://cyprus-mail.com/2022/03/12/vettel-drops-turkish-cypriot-flag-from-crash-helmet/
…but nobody is saying that. People can simply dislike something, or roll their eyes at it, or squint and cringe, without being offended to the point of demanding any of those extreme measures. We’re allowed to have the whole spectrum of critiques.
That’s the thing. Do we like her because she called out Sam Elliot or hate her because of this? That’s the problem with progressive culture which can go from praising someone as they did with Robespierre and Stalin to condemning them.
Sure.But IMO it’s important not to minimize why what she said was tone-deaf and gross, even if it didn’t come from a place of malice. People can forgive others without ever making excuses for what they did. IMO.
sounds like this whole thing is a story we can just skip over on a slow news day.
Is it though. Is it important. Is any of it
It’s also important to understand the context and tone in which she said it, her motivation in saying it and whether the social media mob response to this only serves to undermine all too real examples of misogyny and racism.Unlike other accounts, at least the AV Club made an effort to report the full context of the speech, which was all about female empowerment and obstacles women have had to overcome in male dominated worlds.There was no way anyone could reasonably walk away from the full context of that speech without believing Campion is a huge admirer of the Williams sisters, their accomplishments and all they have had to overcome.When Campion got to her comment in question, it was clearly a joke between women and for women; it both recognized the few opportunities women have had in her own field, but it rested on the absurdity of making this point to women who have had to overcome so much in a sport where black women have had so little opportunity.There is a reason the audience including the Williams sisters clapped and laughed. There is a reason Serena and Venus were seen talking amiably with Campion at an after-party. There was a reason this did not become the BIG issue it has become until over-the-top responses exploded on Twitter. Look, if you think the joke was a bit tone deaf and didn’t land, fine. I get it. What it wasn’t though was dismissive of the Williams and their accomplishments, an example of white feminism run amuck, misogynistic, racist or sexist or all the other things I have read the following day in disbelief.My advice: Save these kind of outbursts for the real deal and for those who deserve it. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of them out there.
This is true and also it’s a learning moment for people like Campion to just tuck a notecard in a sleeve so you can say what you want to say in a moment where you may be flustered. Too often award speeches go wrong because people are superstitious or overly humble in not preparing to give remarks. You have a lot of people to thank. Write their names on a card and leave it at that.
It’s not “gross”, IT WAS A FUCKING JOKE.
I hate cancel culture as much as the next guy, but she said something super dumb and got slammed. But that’s it. Are there other consequences she is facing? So, sure, people sometimes misspeak and we move on. But do you think Campion is a moron? Because that is an incredibly stupid thing to say. It wasn’t even a good analogy.
Of course not. Have you met the Internet?
The problem is, it’s not as much about the Williamses as it is about the twitter mob, and there is no point in being the bigger, forgiving man if you’re anonymous anyway. This could follow her for a while.
I guarantee that some time down the road, a year, maybe six months, whatever, there’ll be a news item. Jane Campion has picked a lead for her new film project. And Twitter will froth. How DARE she be allowed to make movies! Do you KNOW what she did? And no, they will not. No one will remember this. But they will be SURE that she did something unforgiveable.I cringe when chucklefuck dinosaurs like Adam Carolla decry CANCEL CULTURE, but my god this shit is exhausting. If every odd phrasing or dickish personal behavior gets the full sex offender treatment, when there are real pieces of shit who need to be cancelled, they’ll get grouped in with all the non-stories like this.
I seriously doubt it, the average person does not know who Jane Campion is. She’s not big enough, the critics choice awards are not big enough, and the comments aren’t egregious enough (plus she gave a quality apology) that this would follow her around. I’m not on Twitter but the reaction seems to be largely the equivalent of an eyeroll rather than torches and pitchforks.
I was referring to Twitter Discourse™. Most of the people Twitter obsesses over are totally unrecognizable to the average public. The one-two punch of Campion’s response to Sam Elliott and then her bizarre Williams sisters comment lit Twitter the fuck up, but I guarantee not a single person I work with will know a single thing about it. Most people don’t even know that JK Rowling turned into an anti-trans figure.
Her only out at this point is to win the Oscar and use her speech to double-down.“Tennis is silly. I am better than ALL women. I’d like to thank my agents…”$100M podcast contract, here she comes.
I’m sure the Williams sisters wold disagree. But they’re used to the marginalization. Serena is the most dominant athlete ever of all time in any sport by any objective measure. Not even close. 23 major titles. Court’s 24 include 11 in her native Australia at a time when the best world players didn’t go down there to play the Aussie Open.And … marginalized at every turn … even by other women. It boggles the mind. It deserves to follow Campion around. She couldn’t wait to get up there and bluster about her ‘beating the men’ at the expense of the Williams sisters.
here is where my tennis nerd-ness will come up. I worship Serena Williams and she’s my favorite player of all time but despite her high Slam count, there are plenty of other metrics where other players surpass her. And Court’s 24 is a clear example of why Slams are not all that matter. I love these GOAT discussions tho because they are never going to end. “She couldn’t wait to get up there and bluster about her ‘beating the men’ at the expense of the Williams sisters.”Cool, you psychic too? Do me next!!!
Prime Serena would have *crushed* Prime Court. As a fellow tennis nerd, Serena’s serve would have blown a hole in Court’s racquet. Prime Serena’s sheer power and speed combination was unmatched.
I stand by the first part about ‘beating the men.’ But perhaps the Williams tag-on was impromptu (but still in very poor taste.)And we can agree on this … she’s also my favorite player of all time and I’m not gonna let anyone diminish her ever.
Us tennis fans are very protective so I feel you there. To me the GOAT debate at least on the women’s side boils down to Steffi Graf vs Serena (Martina Navratilova would be my #3 because of longevity and stretches of dominance). Anyway, neither here nor there.“But perhaps the Williams tag-on was impromptu (but still in very poor taste.)“I don’t know Jane Campion’s mind but I would definitely chalk up the mention of the Williams to an off the cuff moment that came out all sorts of shitty / braggy. Sure, Serena and Venus don’t have to play the men but they have to deal with all the baggage of being women and Black in a professional setting where the powers that be are mostly men and white.
Too bad about Navratilova’s transphobia
God, you’re fucking pathetic.
I’m not saying this to diminish Serena in any way, but she is certainly not the most dominant athlete in history.
I’m all for forgiving people after they apologize but why did she need to bring up the Williams sisters in the first place? They weren’t nominated in her category. Why did she need to position it as they don’t have to compete against men like she does? She couldn’t direct her comment to the people who keep nominating men and making it hard for women in her field to get recognized? The Williams sisters did not direct King Richard and in fact, the director of the movie was not even nominated. It was odd, an unforced error on her part and instead of her getting to enjoy her win, she’s spent the morning after apologizing. She’s not going to get cancelled but it just shows Black women again that we are not in solidarity or community with white women.
She was making a joke you sad loser.
Is anyone actually refusing to accept her apology tho
Twitter refuses to accept her apology
Ah yes, the sentient entity known as “Twitter.”
I mean, “twitter” is a mass of anonymous, unhinged, frankly insane rabble for whom conflict is food/fuel/an addiction. Reasonable people probably aren’t part of that caterwauling mass.
If by Twitter you mean 2-3 thirsty people…that is not really worth bothering with.
No more forgiveness. No growth allowed. Twitter’s stomach is vast and empty, and it requires souls to grind. At first it was sated by people in need of righteous cancellation, your Cosbys, your Louis CKs, your Weinsteins, but now, now it HUNGERS. Now it needs a Chris Pratt. Why? No one’s sure, but he’s B A D. Ansel Elgort must also be consumed. Did he actually do something wrong? Maybe! John Mulaney is a light snack for the beast. Jane Campion must also be dissolved within these bilious acids. Odd, flustered comments are MORE than enough to qualify for the ravenous cavern, but not NEARLY enough to satisfy. Pick a celebrity at random and the fates will assign something vague to them and the public will forget within 36 hours their vile misdeed, but they will forever be assigned to Bad column, and Twitter will be glad indeed. But only for a moment
That was a piss-cloud for the ages even if it was just loosely constructed from any phrase left in the bin and the occasional disassociation. Good job.I mean, unironic use of No growth allowed(tm)? It’s been like 3 minutes. This is a Louis-CK-coming-out-of-the-bunker-after-6-months line.
Chris Pratt has been criticized for belonging to a homophobic church, being a bad pet owner, and making a post that was extremely insensitive to his son, among other things. Hope this helps!
Being a bad pet owner? And that post was a complete empty fart. The belonging to a homophobic church thing is a bad look, but his connections to them seem to be waaaay overblown. I think he’s a kinda bland one-note actor whose attempts to become the next Harrison Ford or whatever are kind of embarrassing, but I just don’t get the rabid hate. I can’t believe how desperate people still are to be a part of a mindlessly thrashing mob.
So you’re ok with a dad denigrating his disabled kid and supporting homophobia. I think we’ve all learned a little something about Butter Battle Pacifist today.
[CITATION NEEDED]
You’ve gotta lack a pretty significant degree of self-awareness to hear someone say, “Maybe Chris Pratt isn’t the same as Harvey Weinstein and people should reserve the pitchforks and torches for warranted circumstances,” and immediately get out your pitchfork. “We’ve all learned a little something about Butter Battle Pacifist today” is one of the funniest things I’ve read this week so far. Jesus Christ take a breath, walk outside, look at a cloud.
I mean you’re the one who pretended not to, oh wait I’m sorry, didn’t seem to know why he’d been criticized, and when I told you, you decided to be blithe and dismissive about it. That’s very different from saying “Maybe Chris Pratt isn’t the same as Harvey Weinstein,” which you never actually said, and I’m not sure why that needed to be said by anyone, since no one is trying to jail Chris Pratt for sexual assault that I know of. It’s almost like you’re just uncomfortable hearing white straight men get criticized
I think that’s how everyone is chalking it up. No one is suggesting that she be canceled, just the the remark was off. She apologized and that’s it. It’s only the folks who want to keep the untrue cancel culture bogeyman alive that are stoking this. And I guess the people who think you should never apologize for anything.
Well, whyever this site chose to write several hundred words about this, it was *not* because they thought it was a non-incident everyone should ignore.
Agreed. I think it’s a non-story. The Williamses didn’t seem offended at all and they weren’t the ones demanding an apology. That was on the anonymous hoard of self righteous Twitter users. In a more sane world with no internet echo chamber, the rage monsters would have forgotten about this already, and no apology would be necessary. The fact that she made one only shows she’s classier, and probably more earnest, than those trying to drag her on Twitter.
No. She’s been in the limelight long enough she knows how to handle speaking in public. She used the opportunity to boost her own standing at the expense of two innocent bystanders; one of whom was in the audience.
When the FUCK has she ever been in the limelight. She’s a director, not Julia fucking Roberts.
She’s getting off way easy with this “tone deaf” horseshit. If a white penis-owner said it he’d be hung from the flagpole of wokeness before it was finished coming out of his mouth.
Considering that it was this week that week that she was making baseless accusations that Sam Elliott didn’t like her film because a woman made it, she deserves no breaks for her ridiculous comments.
Quiet, you!
We’re trying to be outraged here!
nope, i want blood
“can’t we just chalk this up to someone being kind of flustered and excited and saying something she normally wouldn’t have”Nah. I’ll just flay her publicly because it can get me re-Tweeted and talked about in some two bit blog that will pretend what I have to say has any real merit.
No, because you don’t understand that the general public is perfect and very much in need of a reason to look down at people who receive awards.
I am with you 100%. This whole thing is so fucking stupid and ungenerous.
It’s like saying the USWNT doesn’t have to play against the guys.It sorta discounts all they’ve done in their fight to gain equal footing with the guys.
this idiotic comment insured we’ll never be able to talk about this stupid movie without running a purity test on how wrong sam elliot was in his dipshit remarks vs how wrong jane campion was in her dipshit remarks. it’s like a tug-of-war for knee jerk reaction intersectionality.she was racist!but she owned a homophobe![combusts]
Woof. She really went full Milkshake Duck over the weekend. (I do believe her in her apology, that it was thoughtless and she genuinely regrets it, but… yeesh. Not exactly the best timing coming on the heels of Sam Elliott’s whole deal.)
You might say she hit a solid serve back at Sam Elliot, and then it went into the net.
it was a remarkably dumb thing to say, but a class act apology at least. life comes at you fast.
It wasn’t remarkably dumb, it was exceedingly harmless. People are stupid, that’s the only problem.
I know it was tone deaf but what’s with pushing at the racial angle? That played zero part in her thought process. Her thought process was about all being women. It wouldn’t have mattered if the tennis great in the audience was black, white, armenian, or martian.
Any criticism of the Williams sisters is racist, you know that. What white male tennis player hasn’t stood over a lineswoman and screamed “I swear to God I’ll fucking take the ball and shove it down your fucking throat” without receiving universal praise?
John McEnroe?
John McEnroe was vilified for the way he acted. Now it’s become sort of a joke, but it’s not like he was beloved for it.
She might not have consciously linked it to race but for Black women who deal with this kind of shit from white women all the time, we get it.
Why did she mention the Williams sisters? They weren’t the director for King Richard, they were not nominated in her category. She could have just talked about how hard it is to compete in a category that favors men.
Here is where race comes in. It is well know that one of the ways people try to discredit the Williams sisters’ accomplishment is to say they are not real women and should be competing against men. Because the idea and definition of femininity is white women and a small section of non-white women who fall into a similar look (thin, blonde, straight hair, blue eyes etc). It is why Sharapova got more endorsement than Serena even though Serena was winning titles and Sharapova was doping. It is why some white female tennis players don’t want to get too bulky because then they are no longer feminine. Either Jane doesn’t know enough about their experience/ tennis and made a dumb comment or she subconsciously made the connection but said it a benignly as possible. She apologized which is good but it is also another example for us Black women that we could be existing, minding our own business and here comes a white woman, makes a shitty joke and now we have to extend grace to her. Also, as many people have pointed out, they do play mixed doubles so they actually do compete against men.
Exactly. *WE* get it.
Oh, fuck yourself.
This is why I don’t like TERF’s— their very narrow criteria of “what counts as a woman” excludes not only trans women, but also a lot of cisgender women who are “too muscular” or “not feminine enough” in other ways.
Because Black women are marginalized in a way that white women aren’t? That’s what intersectional feminism is all about.
You’re a very dumb person
That has nothing to do with evaluating what happened here in context. This situation is a specific situation, not an academic rumination on possibilities.
But it does, though. That’s why it’s called intersectional, because racism and sexism exist at all times in all places, and you don’t know that racism wasn’t involved in this specific situation. You are assuming that it wasn’t, and it’s totally fine for you to assume that, but if you are a person who is aware of how stuff like this disproportionately happens to Black women in particular (so very often at the hands of white women), that is, if you are a Black woman, your lived experience is going to tell you to assume differently.
I’m not assuming anything, it’s an objective fact. The basis of the comment had no bearing on race and only bearing on them being women. If the tennis great in the audience had been white, the exact same thing would have been said.
I’m not sure how the thoughts inside someone’s head can be an objective fact. How can you possibly know that the basis of the comment had no bearing on race? How can you possibly know that “if the tennis great in the audience had been white, the exact same thing would have been said”? How can you possibly know that for fact?
How can you know the comment *was* about race? ‘Black women’s work has historically been devalued’ is not evidence.
If you had read my comments instead of just replying without doing so, you would have seen that I never said I knew the comment was about race. I’m not the one claiming my conclusion is an “objective fact.”
“The basis of the comment had no bearing on race and only bearing on them being women.”
how very white feminist of you to say so
This is being made very simple for you:
Jane: white, Williams Sisters: black.
That is all. Maybe yours is the opinion of a more evolved society than we can manage right now; but if a white … says/does/things at/towards/to a not-white … it is bad.
This is being made very simple for you:
Jane: white, Williams Sisters: black.
That is all. but if a white … says/does/things at/towards/to a not-white … it is bad.
This can’t be real life. This is a Ben Shapiro skit of what libruls are like.
You’re assuming just as much as everyone else is here.
So I see you also are in the habit of responding to comments that you didn’t read. I very literally said I was making an assumption based on experience. I’m not the one claiming my assumption is “objective fact.”
It’s not an academic rumination, it’s exactly what’s going on. It’s what the Williams sisters have had to deal with their entire lives. White women minimizing the accomplishments of Black women, consciously or unconsciously, is par for the course.
Why are you talking about “all their lives” instead of this SPECIFIC time?Just because they’ve dealt with racism all their lives doesn’t mean they deal with racism for every second of their lives.
“hey black woman not even in my field, i struggled more than you #actually”
Think you may be projecting here.I mean, maybe you’re right but you cannot say that with the certainty you are.
Because many white women view the femininity of Black women quite differently, consciously or no. That’s not necessarily saying that Jane was being overtly racist, it’s just bringing to light what many Black women have been saying about how their womanhood is seen and valued by white people.
So black women’s femininity is viewed differently by white women, which is wrong… but also their femininity experience is not the same as white women’s which is why we know this remark is racially insensitive said to black women as opposed to white women? Or it was racially insensitive only because it was a white person saying it? I just don’t feel like this makes sense. I’m not insisting that there was no racial component I just don’t see how it was *this* one several people are making, but I’m happy to look again.Also don’t different races often almost inherently view femininity differently? I thought we were embracing that, not squashing it. IMO, it was just a shitty thing so say regardless of any other identifiers. She said to someone “you are sOoOoO amazing” and then said “but I’m more amazing because I had to compete against a thing you didn’t”. It was incredibly minimizing, wholly unnecessary and also false. No one was comparing Jane Campion , film maker, to the Williams’ sisters, tennis players. That makes no sense, but she felt the need to do it to herself in front of everyone and actually had no idea what she was talking about. Super weird. I don’t know what possessed her to behave that way.
Because Black women’s work gets devalued way more than white women’s work. All women’s work gets devalued, but it’s always more when you’re Black, and white women tend to do it a lot, so it’s shitty to see it whenever you do and you (if you’re Black) have to wonder if she would have made the same thoughtless comment about white tennis players. That’s likely why it pissed off Black women so much.
Recognizing what I’m going to say wholly ignores your point, but:
At no time has anyone included putatively obscure nationalities or fictional species in a list of races and come out with an improved argument, especially these days. “[blank] wouldn’t have cared if they were black, white, green or polka dot” isn’t so much an impressive support for someone’s post-racial mindset as it is representative of the arguer’s inability to recognize hoary cliché.
Sort of like when an upper management type says “we’re a family here” to employers. I’m less offended by the toxic implications any more, and more embarrassed that they haven’t thought of a way to put their shitty excuses that wasn’t old hat in the 70s. At that point, I’m less interested in what follows or preceded, and more wondering if they know it’s a bad line and think I don’t, or they’ve simply never been called on it before and still honestly think it’s a great way to put that particular idea.
So, yeah, all that to say… when talking about race, maybe don’t use a construction used by Richard Pryor when he was impersonating an uptight/out-of-touch white person talking about race, lol. At least if you want to be taken seriously. Most folks look at that sort of line, and the eye-roll that’s initiated instantly makes every other point you could be making fall right out of their heads.
two words.click.bait.
Rich white heiress from New Zealand with pithy education.She couldn’t help it.
What a beeeetch.
It was, indeed, a dumb thing to say, and I’m glad she apologized. But something about the weird gloating reaction people had to it was so weird. Like, “ohohoho how the tables have turned! Milkshake duck!”I dunno. I know famous people aren’t your friends, but they are *people*. If someone you know said something kind of foolish but clearly didn’t mean harm, would you kick up a huge fuss about it, or would you just roll your eyes and move on?
As ugly as it is to recognize in myself, I totally GET the gloating (though I don’t condone it). I can’t speak for The Internet, but for me it was a somewhat amusing example of how facile and mercurial Twitter culture is. It went from “yassss queen!” to “you’re history’s greatest monster!” in the spand of like, a day.
But I agree that even though part of the deal with fame and celebrity is that complete strangers have an opinion over much of what they do, it’s best to remember they’re just people.
Yah I kind of was like oof Jane, but at the same time the comment barely made sense and felt like a big flub while it came out of her mouth.It was the reaction by the audience that felt fucking worse.
“Big white flub”.
It’s an audience of people in a fickle business that’s run entirely on personal relationships, dealing in real time on live television (or internet or whatever) with someone – a feminist icon, no less – saying something ridiculous. Do you want to be caught on camera deadfacing a powerful, successful, historic Oscar nominee who’s already won once? For me, I like to work for a living.
“ohohoho how the tables have turned!”
i think people are only saying that cus the day before she was super smug in response to Sam Elliotts stupid comment.
Well today I learned what a milkshake duck is.
“Venus and Serena Williams are the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”Good thing someone re-educated her quickly before things got out of hand.
Jeez, it’s almost like Jane Campion isn’t very articulate or good at getting a point across. I mean, what’s next, is she going to cast someone like Benedict Cumberbatch to play a cowboy or something else equally ridiculous?
I think she’s doing remarkably well considering her mouth looks like a wood chipper.
This is significantly worse than what Sam Elliott said. Having a negative opinion of a piece of art vs denigrating and undermining the lives of two of the most celebrated athletes in the world. Tip top.
Having a negative opinion of a piece of art vs WHITE woman denigrating and undermining the lives of two of the most celebrated BLACK athletes in the world.
FIFY
100%. The Williams sisters have also undoubtedly worked at least 100000 times harder than Jane Campion to achieve their incredible success. Not that Campion isn’t a hard worker, but nepotism in Hollywood is certainly a concern. Also, movie awards are pretty dumb. It’s self serving. These committees pick whatever the flavor of the week is. There’s no objective metrics to which they assign votes/winners.
Movie awards are pretty dumb.
Yeah, jokes about the best female tennis player in the world are terrible, terrible things.Why can’t Jane Campion stop punching down like this????
Twitter thirsts, and will be satisfied.
jane huh.your time has passed 2nd wave troll.
It was just a joke and it didn’t fucking matter to the people involved, so the internet should just butt out.
Adorable Anthony Pirtle thinks the Internet should just stay out of it.
Yeah that was weird and shitty, but the apology was reasonable so whatever.I didn’t watch this awards show obviously but this solidifies my thinking that these shows need to do away with acceptance speeches. It sounds like it was a dumb and boring acceptance speech anyway, as are 99% of them.
Meh. I’m so tired of Hollywood drama over industry people saying something kind of dumb but not exactly malicious in intent. Twitter folks might thrive on it, I don’t.
Think of me when you look to the night sky!
My biggest takeaway was simply that she was a very annoying person.
This is dumb and she shouldn’t have to apologize. It was a random thoughtless joke that was very obviously not intended to “devalue” anyone, Jesus Christ
Now she’s devouring Jesus Christ?
It is dumb but the apology was good. Sometimes we say stupid shit that doesn’t land. Apologies are good!
Idk, I mean with Serena “clapping heavily” in response, I don’t think Campion needs to apologize to her, at any rate. Twitter users are loud, but I imagine (and I of course have no way to prove this) that a large majority of Black viewers had no problem with her statement. I kinda doubt that Campion wouldn’t have made the exact same comment if the Williams sisters were white; race was almost certainly not part of her thinking (even unconsciously) and it wasn’t part of the thinking of the majority of the viewing audience either.Like… Campion doesn’t actually think she’s more impressive than the Williamses because she “plays against the guys”. It was a joke. Just because it’s a joke doesn’t make it not offensive, of course, but people are really warping this into something it was never meant to be.
It’s funny how often “thoughtless jokes” obviously not intended to devalue anyone happen when white people decide to act like they’re chummy pals with nonwhite acquaintances. I don’t have any reason to think Campion’s a racist, but her statement was bizarre and stupid, and her apology was entirely appropriate. Still, it was a good apology, and I hope this gaffe doesn’t cost her in the Academy Awards voting.
I’m surprised and disappointed commenters here are so quick to side with Campion. “Oh, it’s no big deal” … “Oh, she apologized” … “Oh her apology was so thoughtful” … Oh, she didn’t mean it” … “Oh, she was nervous.”Gross. She took a total shot at two innocent bystanders who have had to deal with 10x or 100x the discrimination this woman of privilege from two established families has ever had to endure. Maybe I’m such a Williams sister fan. In the face of al the shit they’ve had to put up with, they live lives of grace and peace and poise (especially off the court – lookin’ at you Serena).Such an undeserved cheap spot to boost her own already high standing.
I’m not a fan of Williams Sister or tennis, but it was a gross cheap uncalled for shot at innocent bystanders. I do not accept “oh she was nervous” from a person who has been in the public eye and the media for literally years. Pretty sure that it was literally yesterday we were all sucking her dick for oh-so-deftly handling Sam Elliott.
It was a dumb thing to say, but there’s no need to attribute so much malice to it.She lives in a word where she competes with men on entirely unequal footing, from the good-ol’-boys network that exists to hand these awards to each other to the good-ol’-boys networks that fund projects, the ones she’s had to work around and/or kowtow to in order to simply work.In all likelihood, this was in no way a shot at the sisters, but rather importing her experience of playing on completely unlevel playing field with the boys — saying how much she’d prefer not to deal with them cheating and tilting things in their favor. This was almost certainly *not* her admitting that she thinks men are naturally superior film directors to women, which is a necessary ingredient for your reading.It was a stupid thing to say, because the dynamics are quite different in tennis than in film, and she only looked at it through her film perspective. So it sounded like a diminishment of their accomplishments, when it was simply a “god, it would be great to just clear the field of all these mediocre guys who get way more everything than they deserve.” Good that she apologized, and her apology should be take at face value.
She lives in a word where she competes with men on entirely unequal
footing, from the good-ol’-boys network that exists to hand these awards
to each other to the good-ol’-boys networks that fund projects, the
ones she’s had to work around and/or kowtow to in order to simply work.This is a valid gripe and she could have talked exclusively about that without bringing people who have no power to change that (Williams sisters) into the conversation. I mean, Best Actress nominees don’t compete against men, does that mean their wins are less valid because they were only competing against women? It is almost like she identified the problem, chickened out or tried to soften it by making a joke at the expense of people who had no reason to be brought into it. And yes she apologized and the Williams sisters will accept/ extend grace. But it would be nice if it wasn’t always Black people extending grace due to something thoughtless that was done to them.
No mention of the Williams sisters playing head-to-head against a male ranked 200+ in the world and getting absolutely wrecked?Nah, let’s just mentioned the mixed doubles competition for… reasons.
1) Mixed doubles isn’t “playing against men” it is “playing WITH a man AGAINST a woman and a man.2) Why the fuck do all these pathetic losers feel the need to come to the aid of THE BEST FEMALE TENNIS PLAYERS EVER? Jesus fucking Christ, this is not about you and your sad need to pretend you’re interacting with a famous person.
In sports, women compete against other women, and men compete against men. In film making and directing, it’s always been men competing against men. Out of almost 100 years of Oscars, only 2 women have won the Oscar for Best Director…..
“…especially since the two tennis players have played men in mixed doubles and won multiple times.”I’d like to believe this isn’t intentional, but as written it’s easy for a reader without knowledge of tennis to conclude “mixed doubles” is a team of two women competing against a team of two men, or that the Venus and/or Serena have won in mixed doubles in spite of their male teammates. I doubt either would feel that were appropriate.
Did she apologize calmly and hilariously or are we not adding unnecessary adverbs to headlines about Jane Campion anymore?