SAG Awards criticised for allowing Mark Wahlberg to present award to Asian cast
The SAG Awards have been criticised for having actor Mark Wahlberg present an award to the cast of Everything Everywhere All At Once given his history.
The final award of the night went to the much-lauded film, which features a predominantly Asian cast, and Wahlberg was the one presenting the gong.
However, this has attracted criticism over Wahlberg's past, with the actor previously jailed for assaulting a pair of Vietnamese men while police also said he'd used racial slurs to describe them.
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Plenty took to social media to question the logic of the SAG Awards putting Wahlberg on award-presenting duties in a category they presumably knew was going to be won by Everything Everywhere All At Once.
One person said it was 'REALLY interesting' that Wahlberg had been invited to present the award, while someone else described him as an 'interesting choice'.
Another person quipped that the actor deserved praise for 'standing on a stage with all those Asian people without assaulting any of them'.
Others defended the actor, saying 'people love to talk about forgiveness and second chances until it's Mark Wahlberg', saying he had 'paid his debts to society'.
Wahlberg has twice been charged with race-related hate crimes during his time living in Boston in the 1980s.
The first instance occurred in June 1986 when the actor was 15. He and three friends were charged for chasing three Black children and throwing rocks at them while shouting 'kill the n*****s' until an ambulance driver stepped in to stop them.
A day after that incident Wahlberg harassed a group of mainly Black children at the beach, gathering others to join in with hurling rocks and racial abuse at the children.
Wahlberg was found to have violated the civil rights of his victims, and two years later he was involved in another racist assault when he was high on the drug PCP.
In April 1988 he attacked Vietnamese-American man Thanh Lam, knocking him unconscious with a wooden stick while calling him a 'Vietnam f**king s**t' before punching army veteran Johnny Trinh in the eye.
Investigators noted that Wahlberg used racial slurs against his victims, and he was charged with attempted murder, though the actor pleaded guilty to felony assault and claimed his attacks hadn't been racially motivated.
Due to his previous sentence, he was found to be in contempt of court and sentenced to two years in prison, though only served 45 days before being released.
In 2014 he attempted to seek a pardon for the second incident as he was 'deeply sorry' for what he had done, but dropped this bid in 2016 and later said he had 'done the work' to make amends, he said he had met Trinh and made amends, while Trinh said he forgave Wahlberg.
UNILAD has contacted the SAG Awards for comment.
Topics: Mark Wahlberg, Celebrity, Film and TV
Joe Harker