As with nearly any big announcement or change in the entertainment world, the reveal of Olympian and Keeping Up with the Kardashians star Bruce Jenner’s transition into Caitlyn Jenner was met with large amounts of derision as well as praise from the public. The latest headline-making criticism involves the Academy Award-winning director and actor Clint Eastwood, whose verbal jab at Jenner at Spike’s Guys’ Choice Awards 2015 will be removed from the aired broadcast.
Here’s how things originally played out. During the award show’s taping in California on Saturday night, Eastwood was introducing Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to the stage, according to USA Today, and in making a comparison between Johnson and other athletes that turned into actors, Eastwood used the examples “Jim Brown and Caitlyn Somebody.”
And that was apparently enough to spook executives, and Spike TV’s senior vice president of communications David Schwarz confirmed that the reference will be taken out of the final broadcast that will air next week. For a show that’s being touted as “unfiltered” and “unpredictable,” this sounds like a pretty predictable case of filtering to draw the least amount of negativity possible. Not that all the pre-show stories about the comment getting cut are going to do anyone better.
I guess it all has to do with what Clint Eastwood’s tone was, as it initially just sounds to me like he’s making a joke about how universally known Caitlyn Jenner is at this point, given all the publicity she’s gotten recently, especially after the Vanity Fair cover came out. But then maybe he actually was just being harshly dismissive, as Eastwood is no stranger to making his output political, from his movies to his interviews. Without having video evidence of it, it’s hard to know what the motivation behind the comment was. I fully expect some kind of footage to be leaked in the future though, because that’s how the Internet works.
This sounds vaguely familiar, as the most recent Comedy Central Roast for Justin Bieber was missing a few Paul Walker jokes when it aired, as network execs decided to excise them for taste’s sake. As with most instances of assumedly offensive speech on TV, it’s always a network’s choice whether to air it or not, and apparently the network that airs a “guys’ choice” award show didn’t approve of Eastwood’s words. The world never ceases to amaze.
You can catch the Guys Choice Awards 2015 when it airs on Spike on Thursday, June 18. It will be hosted by Empire stars Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, with honors going to celebrities like Liam Neeson, Chelsea Handler, Jake Gyllenhaal and Russell Westbrook.
