On the evening of Sunday, March 10, the 96th Academy Awards (Oscars) took place as it celebrated the acclaimed actors and works over the past year.
However, one of the award winners received backlash from many for his apparent disrespect to the award presenter.
Robert Downey Jr. has been getting backlash for blatantly ignoring Ke Huy Quan at the awards when he presented him with the Best Actor in the Supporting Role category.
The Academy Awards revived an old tradition of the previous winners of the award to present the award for their respective categories to this year's winners. Since Ke Huy Quan won the Best Supporting Actor award last year for his role in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once,' he presented the award to Robert Downey Jr. this year for his role in 'Oppenheimer.'
However, when Robert Downey Jr. came up on the stage to accept the award, he took the award from Ke Huy Quan's hands without even making eye contact with the actor. Instead, he went on to shake hands with the others on stage. It became clearer that Robert Downey Jr. ignored Ke Huy Quan since the actor was seen even tapping Robert Downey Jr. to get his attention.
After seeing the award ceremony Sunday, Korean netizens also took notice of Robert Downey Jr.'s rude actions and gathered in a popular online community to criticize the actor's actions.
Korean netizens accused Robert Downey Jr. of being racist and commented, "Wow, he just treated Ke Huy Quan like he was some staff member," "Does he not see the person giving him the trophy?" "Wow, that's so racist of him," "He's so rude," "I'm glad I never liked him," "Wow, he's just trash," "Ke Huy Quan must've been so embarrassed to be ignored like that," "Why can't these celebrities have manners?" "I'm so disappointed," "This wasn't even a small-scale award show," "He doesn't even make eye contact," and "Wow, look how he just ignores him and takes the award from him without making eye contact."
Other Korean netizens stumbled upon additional photos capturing Robert Downey Jr. greeting Ke Huy Quan backstage. However, they revealed that Robert Downey Jr. only went to shake hands with Ke Huy Quan's hands because, most likely, the PR team insisted him to.
They commented, "So he was told to go say hello to Ke Huy Quan probably just for the photos," "So what if he went to say hi backstage, he totally ignored him on stage," and "This doesn't change how rude he was to Ke Huy Quan on stage."
There are 5 former Oscar winners on stage. He did not speak to or shake hands with three of them. The ones he did speak to were former co-stars. Tim Robbins steps forward and shoves his hand out first. Sam Rockwell gave a speech about RDJ before the winner was announced. I think he didn't intentionally snub anyone, he knew he'd have time to greet them backstage and this is live TV with a limited time to give his speech and this is his very first Oscar. RDJ is a poster child for redemption and sobriety and he's worked hard to get to this level all the while acknowledging his troubled past. I hate that he's being judged harshly for what looks like a little bit of self-absorbed behavior upon winning the biggest honor in his field in front of peers and co-workers and millions of tv viewers. You all do realize he's just a man, right? A man who can get nervous but act like he isn't. A man who can be beyond happy, but self-deprecating enough to make it seem like it's not that big of a deal?
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Rude? Yes. Racist? Doubt.
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