‘Licorice Pizza’ nominated for multiple awards, draws continued criticism for ‘racist’ Asian accent scene
December 17, 2021
Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” film has received multiple movie award nominations, but some viewers are still discussing its controversial scene wherein a character mocks an Asian accent.
The nominations: “Licorice Pizza” has landed nominations at the 2022 Satellite Awards, Golden Globe Awards, New York Film Critics Circle Awards and multiple nods at the Critics’ Choice Awards.
- “Licorice Pizza” is one of the films to lead the Critics’ Choice Awards for its eight nominations including Best Director, Best Motion Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture.
- However, early screening viewers of the film were reportedly shocked at a scene wherein a character mocked Asian accents.
- While Anderson had previously justified the controversial scene as staying true to the depiction of the 1970s period, many remain skeptical and disappointed.
- David Chen of the “Culturally Relevant” podcast had previously tweeted that the scene “added virtually nothing to [the film]” on Nov. 18.
- Three days ago, he tweeted about the film again stating, “[Extremely sad, disappointing and upsetting] to see the entire critical community on here band together to dunk on anyone who dares say anything negative about that racist awfulness in Licorice Pizza.”
- Roxana Hadidi, TV critic for Vulture, replied: “Amazing how you could just NOT have any of that in the movie and nothing would be affected! I do not understand what the ‘essential’ nature of those scenes were.”
- “I haven’t seen the movie but just looked into what you’re talking about and his defense is wild. The point of the movie isn’t to tackle the racism of that time. It’s like if in ‘A Kinght’s Tale’ they just threw in a rape scene and was like, ‘Well there was a lot of rape then,’” another user replied.
Featured Images via MGM
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