That the internet is a permanent record of every dumb shit thought that popped into your head 10 years ago is an issue in and of itself. However that said, most of us didn’t have dumbshit thoughts about 9/11 back in the day, and most of us definitely don’t have an Oscar-contending film currently out, so here we are.
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Earlier this week Nick Vallelonga picked up a Golden Globe award for Best Screenplay for his work on Green Book, alongside fellow writers Brian Hayes Currie and Peter Farrelly. The film is based largely on stories and interviews Vallelonga got from his father Tony, and tracks the journey between a black jazz pianist and his Italian-American bouncer on a tour of the US deep south states in the mid 1960s.
Winning the Globe put Vallelonga and the film in firm contention for a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the upcoming Academy Awards. However, that’s all come off the rails this morning because Vallelonga seems to have, at one time, committed the ultimate sin of being racist online.
An old tweet from 2015 resurfaced this morning, in which Vallelonga backed in then-not President Donald Trump‘s extremely false claim that on the after the World Trade Centre collapsed on September 11th, he saw thousands of Muslim-Americans cheering and celebrating in New Jersey on TV.
Once it surfaced again, Vallelonga swiftly deleted his account, but not before receipts were kept.
https://twitter.com/jehorowitz/status/1083155351065612288
Not the greatest look in the world, by any stretch of any imagination. Speaking to IndieWire, a representative for Vallelonga confirmed the writer had deleted his account and that they were “not sure if any comment is actually needed here.”
Currently, Green Book stands as the raging hot favourite to take out the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, according to various bookmakers. The movie leads Roma and The Favourite in the category.
Whether or not this bout of past ridiculousness has any abject effect on the film’s award aspirations remains to be seen.
But there’s a lesson in all of us, here: Don’t tweet dumb sweet about 9/11.
Fairly simple stuff, you’d reckon.
