The Onion Calls 9-Year-Old Oscar Nominee Quvenzhane Wallis A Cunt, Deletes Tweet
The Onion, a long-standing, popular satirical news publication which posts fake news articles, slandered Quvenzhane Wallis when they posted the tweet above last night. The tweet has since been deleted from the twitter account, but the proof is still on the web.  There is no discernible reason or event that occurred which spurred the ugly tweet. Its so ambiguous that we don’t know if they were being serious, or sarcastic. Either way it does not matter. The Onion’s twitter account has nearly 5 million followers,  mainly white males, a group less familiar with Quvenzhane Wallis’ work, and therefore more likely to form an opinion on whatever limited information they come across. The Onion’s tweet may be these readers  only familiarity with the young actress, and they may subconsciously develop negative opinions about the actress.  Wallis is at the beginning of her career, and a tweet like this could give her an undeserved reputation, hampering her growth in Hollywood. As the story is spread online, readers will look to see where the Onion was coming from, and it will be difficult to have forget those words when seeing her for some time. For this reason, I consider the tweet slander, and think The Onion should pay a literal price to Wallis.
The Onion joked about many celebrities as they live tweeted during last night’s Oscar’s ceremony. i.e. “Did you know Hugh Jackman delivers a star turn in ‘Les Misérables’ as Lester Misérables, Paris’ fanciest barber?” All good fun right?
But no attack was as direct an assault as calling Wallis a cunt.
9-year Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest woman of any race to be nominated for an Academy Award.  She showed up to the ceremony with her signature, fury poppy dog purse, ready to celebrate by eating crawfish if she won. She posed for red carpet photos with celebrities like Halle Berry, and gave typical red carpet interviews to publications that approached her. See her give an interview on the red carpet below:
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How do moronic tweets like this get posted to major publications in 2013? How could the writers who published this at The Onion not known the repercussions?
One suspicion of mine is that the experienced writers did know the repercussions, and intentionally posted something controversial in order to gain links from news blogs, and increase page views on their site. If so, what a crass, offensive way to do so. However the site seems to be doing well for itself.
It is a possibility that one stray writer posted the tweet, and because it was live, no editor had time to reject it. In this case, with a prompt apology, some might find it in their hearts to forgive the blog.
The tweet begs the question, would this ever have been tweeted about a 9-year-old history making White child? Share your thoughts below.
