Entertainment

'22 Jump St's Directors Not Happy With Jonah Hill

by Alanna Bennett

Jonah Hill's still in hot water for that homophobic slur he recently hurled at a paparazzi, and his directors for 22 Jump Street have apparently been standing in line to call him out for it. Hill apologized for the incident Tuesday, but it's still front-and-center on a lot of people's minds. Here's what Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had to say to Buzzfeed Wednesday:

It obviously was really disappointing. It was surprising because it was not the Jonah that we know. He’s a very sweet and generous person. Hopefully it will do what he’s saying [in his apologies]. It will remind people why that’s a shitty thing to say to people.

No matter how this does or doesn't play out for Hill in particular, apparently 22 Jump Street will address the issue soon enough. Though obviously the film was completed long before the "incident," according to the directors it's still a topic that comes up in the movie (arguable character spoilers ahead):

Lord: [The film] explicitly discusses that word and why you shouldn’t say it. It was part of Channing’s character’s growth of being at college, opening himself up to new ideas. I’m very curious how it affects people’s experience of the movie.

Hill, who shouted "suck my dick, you faggot" at a paparazzo, has proven himself much more adept at apology than many celebrities, though still not perfect — he's now expressed remorse multiple times, to both positive and negative reactions from the crowd at home. Like when Justin Bieber apologized for his use of a racial slur in an old video, it begs the question: Who's job is it to decide when a celebrity's forgiven? But what does or does not exonerate a celebrity after they pull something shitty in public? What's "unforgivable," versus something we can move on from?

The public's certainly got a long memory, so it's not like it's about to be forgotten. And it certainly was something shitty. But if people still went to see Bryan Singer's X-Men even after he was publicly accused of multiple accounts of sexual assaultand oh, they did — I kind of feel like 22 Jump Street is gonna be fine in the wake of Jonah Hill yelling something gross.