Actor Chet Hanks, famously known as award-winning actor Tom Hanks’ son, responded to cultural appropriation accusations on Showtime’s new show ZIWE, saying, “Kick Rocks.”
“Are there any marginalized communities you want to apologize to? I don’t know, maybe the patois community?” Nigerian-American comedian and host Ziwerekoru “Ziwe” Fumudoh initially asked Hanks on her show on May 6.
“Nah,” he responded. “I don’t feel like I’ve done anything truly offensive, so I don’t.”
“You don’t see it as cultural appropriation. You see it as a celebration of culture,” Fumudoh then said.
“Mhm,” the 31-year-old replied.
“And then it’s like, the social justice warriors can go kick rocks?” she then asked him.
“Yeah…yeah,” he said before taking a sip from a coffee mug and staring directly at the screen. “I [one] hundred percent agree. Social justice warriors can kick rocks.”
The Los Angeles native recently portrayed a white guy appropriating his deceased former nanny’s Trini accent on the third season of the award-winning hit FX show Atlanta. Hanks appeared in an episode titled “Trini 2 De Bone.”
He is notorious for using Jamaican patois in his Instagram skits in 2020. He even popped up on the Golden Globes red carpet that year, using the accent.
American entertainer, Chet Hanks, welcomes viewers to the 2020 Golden Globes yesterday, in patois. In November last year, the Jamaican Language Unit of @UWImona ramped up its advocacy for Patois to be made an official language by launching a petition on the website of the OPM. pic.twitter.com/jSLSW4Kl4O
— Jamaica Gleaner (@JamaicaGleaner) January 6, 2020
Hanks was reportedly supposed to appear on Fumudoh’s Instagram Live series titled Baited With Ziwe. However, she got him on her show after another guest dropped out.
“He randomly texted me, like, congratulating me on my work, and then I asked him, like, ‘Oh hey, do you wanna do the show?'” she said in a recent interview. “The crew sort of turns against me. There’s nothing on video that could capture the way in which they sort of walked away from me and into the arms of Chet Hanks.”
In another episode of her show, she put The Breakfast Club radio host Charlamagne Tha God on blast for beefing with Black women in the entertainment industry.
“So, you’ve had beefs with Lil Mama, Monique, Cassie, Azealia Banks, your own co-host Angela Yee, the list goes on and on and on and on,” Fumudoh said.
“Beef is a strong word,” Charlamagne, whose real name is Lenard Larry McKelvey, replied.
