At last night’s VMAs Rebel Wilson announced the Best Hip Hop Video right after The Weeknd performed his smash hit “I Can’t Feel My Face”. She came out in a cop outfit complete with aviator shades and a hat, which she tore off to reveal a t-shirt with read “F*ck The Stripper Police”. She opened with “I know a lot of people have problems with the police” and went into a bit about how she hates “police strippers,” which fell so flat to me. It was dumb and pointless, but worse than that, she seemed to be mocking the Black Lives Matter movement. “They come to your house. You think you’re getting arrested, and you just get a lap dance and it’s usually uninspired. I hired a police stripper for my grandma’s 80th and he wouldn’t even feel her up… I hate this injustice.”
Many people thought that Rebel’s bit was tone deaf, and that she was making light of people’s legitimate concern over the shocking number of people of color killed by law enforcement. Remember she was introducing the Best Hip Hop Video, so you would question why she thought a joke mocking police brutality was at all appropriate. Here are some of the reactions on Twitter to this:
still processing the fact that @mtv & @RebelWilson made a joke about police brutality…
— جميلة (@KaeVanity) August 31, 2015
Nicki's energy would've been better spent calling out Rebel Wilson's unacceptable police brutality jabs than wasting words on Miley. #VMAs
— David Levitz (@DavidLevitz) August 31, 2015
Rebel Wilson's got her nerve presenting Best Hip-Hop Video while making a joke out of police/state violence.
But I digress. #VMAS
— Derrick Clifton (@DerrickClifton) August 31, 2015
What rebel Wilson just did on the VMA's was mad disrespectful to victims of police brutality.
— Bryce (@pyneal_) August 31, 2015
Rebel Wilson really went from referencing police brutality to stripping out of a police costume. #vmas
— TJ Henderson (@KhrisJWilson) August 31, 2015
You can see some more tweets on Mashable. I really wonder if Rebel is going to apologize at all. There were so many other jokes she could have made in that brief moment she had before introducing Best Hip Hop Video and that was just so insensitive. Rebel has of yet not responded, but she has retweeted some positive reactions to her joke. You get the impression that she’s just going to ignore it or blow it off, similar to how she responded when it came out that she’s been lying about her age.
Here’s the video:
Cracking up at the VMA's!!! @NICKIMINAJ = queen x pic.twitter.com/3xeW18dOfF
— Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) August 31, 2015
Oh and Rebel wore Eloquii on the red carpet. She told Kelly Osbourne that she has her own fashion line coming out this fall but that she didn’t want to wear a dress that wasn’t available yet. Sure.
Here’s Rebel’s face when Nicki called out Miley Cyrus.
Rebel Wilson’s face when Nicki Minaj called Miley Cyrus out is hilarious af http://t.co/PUQQk2FZTO pic.twitter.com/FWBERbWrrq
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) August 31, 2015
Photo credit: WENN.com and Getty Images
I would say she was legitimately just making a joke about strippers who dress like police officers, but the fact that it happened as she was announcing Best Hip Hop leaves no room for the benefit of the doubt. It’s bad.
I said this in another thread but honestly, who green-lit this? It’s got to be one of the most tone-deaf things I’ve seen in a long time, never mind the fact that it was just not funny. Honestly now. *SMDH*
At best Tone deaf, at worst MTV has No Black writers cause This and My Mammy got passes
yeah, obviously scripted.
tone deaf and dumb
over like a lead balloon, about as offensive as Margaret Cho’s Korean Lady
Nah, she’ll probably just moan about ‘tall poppy syndrome’ again. I think this was in really poor taste, especially with Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’ up in that category. And it wasn’t even funny.
Why is this woman a thing? Why are they still trying to make her happen? She was funny in Pitch Perfect and that’s it – everything else she’s done is just boring and totally unfunny. Why, of everyone else on that audience, did they chose her to give out that award?! Heck, even Kim Kardashian wouldve made more sense.
I think it’s just that typical tone deaf celebrity thing. Being disconnected from the world. It’s true that police brutality doesn’t really make headlines in Australia, but Rebel lives in LA so you think she’d be aware of it… Such an awkward joke. It doesn’t even really make sense.
I feel many celebrities do not really follow news.
Josefa, I agree. One could argue – as one of my mates did today – that lots of people just don’t get Aussie humour. Well, I’m Australian, and like the rest of us, love a good laugh. As you say, Dash, it didn’t make waves here, but I did see the clip on one channel. Perhaps it was out of context, but I certainly did not find it funny. At all. I don’t know whether she was just doing a joke about strippers dressed as police (I hate them, too!) and it went over like a lead balloon, whether she or someone else wrote it intentionally to aggravate people, whether it was a slur against police brutility…I just don’t know. But it was ridiculous, completely unfunny and totally unnecessary, especially from someone who’s not that funny at the best of times.
Some could argue that Aussies don’t understand American police brutality.
American law enforcement have killed someone EVERY DAY SINCE THE START OF 2015, minus 12 days. Haha, so funny.
And yes, this is an AMERICAN problem. Police in the US are 92 times more lethal than abroad. And don’t ask how many murdered were POC. I cry every time I see the figure.
Anti-Aboriginal racism is a huge problem in Australia. So this kind of thing is not something she should be at all unaware of.
I didn’t think she was snubbing her nose at the police violence whatsoever.
I thought it was some sort of homage to “Straight Outta Compton” (albeit, a bad one)…considering the fact that one of NWA’s most famous songs was called “F— tha Police”.
Much of NWAs music was reaction to profiling and police brutality of the 80s, the only thing has changed as that the grievance now has “legitimate” political expression in the form of Black Lives Matter. Theres no way you can reference F the police without invoking whats happening today. Perhaps white Australian girls should learn their place and stay there.
“Learn their place”? What a disgusting and offensive expression. It sounds like a line from “The Help” and not in a good way. And suggesting that someone should ‘stay there’ because of her ethnic background? Ugh.
I see hating white women is still going strong in America.
I actually think that makes it worse because then not only is she tone deaf re what is going on now but also to the fact that not much has changed in 25 years. She’s not (imo) making fun of police brutality but she sure as hell used it for laughs. To present THAT category. It’s lazy at best.
I don’t know why people find her so funny, her humor is not very sharp.
People find her funny? I watched the show with several friends and we were all just “ugh” when she appeared on stage. I cant stan her.
This^ it even has the “Tha” instead of “The” …. as in the song…. “F- Tha Police” by NWA
i tried to watch this show and could not believe how bad it was. rebel wilson so unfunny and should not be taking clothes off period. if only kanye had repeated his stage rushing, that at least would’ve been funny. after demi lavato “performance” i switched to pbs and watched cumberbatch’s sherlock. never again.
It was offensive, but even if it weren’t, it wouldn’t be in the least bit funny. What was the point? “Hahah strippers who dress like cops exist.” Uh, okay. Hilarious.
Wasn’t Rebel in a movie with a stripper dressed as a cop? Or was that someone else. Either way wasn’t funny. If you’re going to risk offending people then at least be funny.
This was stupid and insensitive. She made some preachy comments about gun control using her native Australia to make her point and I was OK with that because it wasn’t something negative to say, but if she’s going to make jokes or try to make light about serious issues we have in this country, she can kindly take her ass home to Australia.
I don’t like anything Rebel Wilson does because I don’t find women or men saying “look at me, I’m fat” to be funny but apparently there are people out there who find that shtick to be hilarious and entertaining. Rebel’s shtick is that she plays the dumb fat girl who is confident and the implication is that she has no reason to be confident because she’s fat. I don’t find that funny at all.
So offensive to all the victims of police brutality. Disgusting.
Her joke was bad timing… I get where she was going with this but the timing and delivery was just all wrong.
Sorry, but I just cannot stand her or her ‘humour’, which is much like Melissa McCarthy’s to me.
She’s just an embarrassment to Australia.
I didn’t watch it, but the shirt and the snippet I read from her speech were funny! I have not seen Pitch Perfect and I have no comment on her work. But I am a big leftie liberal and am disgusted by police violence. I think this was just joking out of frustration that NOTHING is changing for the better on that front.
Given that a deputy sheriff was just shot in the back and killed last week while simply putting gas in his car, the whole thing should have been scrapped.
What is she still doing? OK she had PP2 ..can she go away now? Everything else she attempts bombs. Badly.
I find her to be grating and unfunny. That show she had, “Super Happy Fun Night”, was horrid. She is not funny at all. Ugh.
Yet another reason not to like her.
She keeps reinforcing my dislike for her.
Yuck.