So, at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards last night, apparently film critic and noted contrarian Armond White decided it would be a great idea to heckle 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen as the director accepted an award on stage. From Variety:
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Yikes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the heckling, "could not be heard from the front of the room and did not interrupt the proceedings." STILL.
Variety doesn't specify whether or not White was drunk at the event (even though it kind of sounds like he REALLY WAS), but eyewitness tweets suggest otherwise:
Def for McQueen. Armond was too drunk and had to leave. Ask him tmrw.
@trim_obey My friend & I left the table after that big outburst. But he & cohort had been drunk & heckling at a lesser level the whole time.
Oh, and this wasn't the only instance of fuckery. Apparently, upon accepting her award, 20-year-old Blue Is the Warmest Color star (and absolute ANGEL) Adèle Exarchopoulos was also heckled and told to "suck a dick" by someone at White's table. (No way of know who made the comment.) Either way—it's sexual harassment, and it shouldn't be ignored:
As Adele Exarchopoulos accepts, a brief, brave cry of dissent from the Armond table of sycophants: "Suck a dick!"
Dallas Buyers Club star Jared Leto wasn't well received by White's table either:
Scattered cries of "bullshit" et al from the Armond table for Leto quelled by news it's time for AMERICAN HUSTLE awards.
This isn't the first time that White has heckled award-winners at events. As Variety points out, back in 2011 he "took verbal jabs" at Annette Bening and Michelle Williams while hosting the event, and in 2012, he heckled Robert De Niro and Viola Davis as they spoke on stage.
If you're unsure of who Armond White is, here's some background. White is a New York-based film critic who, broadly speaking, has some...different ideas about what makes for a good film. Remember the moving beauty that was Toy Story 3? Remember how it made you bawl along with all the other movie theater patrons during that one part? Well, White hated that movie, and he's one of the reasons that it doesn't currently hold a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's an excerpt:
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Oh, yeah, and that same year, he liked Jonah Hex. Over Toy Story 3. Seriously:
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That's not all. He also thought that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Taken 2 were better movies than Kathryn Bigelow's award-winning Zero Dark Thirty, because, quote, "[Ghost Rider 2 directors] Neveldine-Taylor and [Taken 2 director] Olivier Megaton revealed the post-9/11 zeitgeist in genre tropes, while Bigelow reduced the zeitgeist to an enigmatic comic strip, a 'mission accomplished' delusion."
Back to White's heckling of McQueen—it's worth noting that White was one of the only critics this year to hate on McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. In a lengthy review, he scolded that the film "belongs to the torture porn genre with...the Saw franchise but it is being sold (and mistaken) as part of the recent spate of movies that pretend 'a conversation about race.' The only conversation this film inspires would contain howls of discomfort." An excerpt from the full review, which can be read here:
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Armond White. Most fun guy of 2013, 2014, and beyond.
The rest of the NYFCC awards reportedly went smoothly, and, as The Wire points out, there are many parts of the event "that should be highlighted instead of White's rudeness." Like Belafonte's amazing speech, which you should read.
White has not yet commented on the incident.
UPDATE: In response to the reports, White has released a statement to Indiewire, denying that he heckled McQueen:
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NYFCC chair Josh Rothkopf (of Time Out) has apologized to Fox Searchlight for the incident.
RELATED: Armond White Doesn't Get the Horror of "12 Years a Slave"
