Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actress Janet Hubert has criticized her former co-star Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith after Pinkett Smith suggested that black actors should consider boycotting next month’s Oscars. Why? Because all 20 acting nominees for this year’s awards are white. Will Smith — a recent Golden Globe nominee for his performance in sports drama Concussion — is among the high-profile black actors to have been left off the shortlist.
In a video posted on her Facebook page last night, Hubert — who played Aunt Vivian in the classic 90s sitcom — began a hard-hitting four-minute response to Pinkett Smith’s comments on the #OscarsSoWhite controversy by asking: “First of all, Miss Thing, does your man not have a mouth of his own with which to speak?”
Hubert then accused Pinkett Smith of rallying against what she feels is a relatively trivial issue, saying: “There’s a lot of shit going on in the world that you all don’t seem to recognize. People are dying. Our boys are being shot left and right. People are starving. People are trying to pay bills. And you’re talking about some motherfucking actors and Oscars. It just ain’t that deep.”
Becoming even more outspoken, Hubert went on to suggest that Smith’s Concussion perform wasn’t worthy of awards recognition anyway, saying: “Frankly I didn’t think you deserved a Golden Globe nomination with that accent.” She also accused Will Smith of failing to support his Fresh Prince cast mates when they were attempting to request a pay rise in the 90s. Pinkett Smith has so far declined to respond to Hubert’s video, but as the #OscarsSoWhite debate rages on, the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), Cheryl Boone Isaacs, has said she is “heartbroken and frustrated” by the lack of diversity in this year’s nominations and pledged to take measures to prevent it from happening again.