Three supposed comediennes co-hosted the Oscars Sunday night, as the show, which has been reeling from its plunge in ratings in recent years, attempted to win America over. Co-host Wanda Sykes decided she would alienate plenty of people in Florida by attacking them over the state’s Parental Rights in Education legislation, sniping, “Well, we’re going to have a great night tonight. And for you people in Florida, we’re going to have a gay night.”
She then joined co-hosts Regina Hall and Amy Schumer to chant like defiant four-year-olds, “Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay.”
They’re laughing at you, Florida, not with you.#DontSayGay#Oscars pic.twitter.com/GGoQEISU30
— Peter Schorsch 🇺🇦 (@PeterSchorschFL) March 28, 2022
Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for Florida GOP governor Ron DeSantis, who reportedly supports the bill, mocked the trio of faux-comediennes with a succinct and lacerating tweet: “Florida will never recover from this.”
Florida will never recover from this 😅 https://t.co/PDZzamxPDv
— Christina Pushaw 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) March 28, 2022
The trio of co-hosts didn’t stop at attacking Floridians; Schumer taunted white women, snapping,“I am representing unbearable white women who call the cops when you get a little too loud.”
Hall prompted Sykes, saying,“You know, this year, we saw a frightening display of how toxic masculinity turns into cruelty toward women and children.”
Sykes carped, “Damn that Mitch McConnell.”
The New York Times gushed about the opening monologue, “It was a fast-paced avalanche of witty snipes, rapid-fire roasts and a sprinkle of Hollywood pomp and circumstance as the hosts began their evening-long quest to reverse the Oscars rating slide.” The Times noted that at a news conference on Thursday, commenting on the fact that the trio might perform together at some times and solo at others, Sykes said, “It might be one of us, it might be two of us, we all might be drunk, so it might be nobody.”
The Times reported after last year’s Oscar telecast, “Sunday night’s 93rd Academy Awards came as a body blow: About 9.85 million people watched the telecast, a 58 percent plunge from last year’s record low.”
In late February, Florida’s House of Representatives passed HB 1557, the bill that would prohibit a school district from encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in early primary grade levels. The bill “prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, and, in other grade levels, bars discussion that is not ‘age or developmentally appropriate.’ It would also allow parents to sue school districts that go against the law,” CBS News reported.
The bill, backed by Republican members of the House, passed 69-47. On March 8, the Florida Senate passed the bill. It is awaiting DeSantis’ signature. If it is ultimately signed into law, it will be implemented for the 2022-2023 school year.
The sponsor of the bill, Republican Florida State Rep. Joe Harding, who has four children, told Fox News:
One, it defines that there are certain instructions related to gender and sexual orientation that are just not appropriate at certain ages and we define that as kindergarten through third grade. A school having curriculum that teaches gender and sexual orientation and what that means and getting into the weeds on that is just not age appropriate.
The second thing is that it creates a course of action for the parent who is dealing with a school district that has decided they are going to become the parent. They’re going to take your student that has anxiety and stress and mental concerns maybe even talking about self-harm and they’re going to put them in mental health and take steps to change the services at the school and protect that student from themselves but never engage with the parent. That’s just wrong so our bill seeks to remedy that.
Earlier this month, DeSantis, responding to a reporter who used the leftist verbiage of calling the bill the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, fired back:
Does it say that in the bill? Does it say that in the bill? I’m asking you to tell me what’s in the bill because you are pushing false narratives. It doesn’t matter what critics say. For who? For grades pre-K through three. So, 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and the idea that you wouldn’t be honest about that and tell people what it actually says is why people don’t trust people like you because you peddle false narratives. And so we disabuse you of those narratives. And, we are going to make sure that parents are able to send their kids to kindergarten without having some of this stuff injected into their school curriculum.