Everything Everywhere All at Once continued its awards season tear at the SAG Awards Sunday night, Feb. 26. Three of the film’s stars — Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ke Huy Quan — won individual acting prizes, while the entire ensemble took home Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
It was this last award, however, that has stirred up some controversy — not because of the winner, but the presenter: Mark Wahlberg. As the predominately Asian cast of EEAO took the stage, Wahlberg’s presence raised eyebrows considering his history of violence against Asian people as a teenager.
“It must have been quite a shock for Mark Wahlberg to witness a group of Asians beating white people,” journalist Jeff Yang tweeted, Another reporter, Bonnie Stiernberg, added, “I gotta say, having Mark Wahlberg, who literally went to jail as a teen for committing a hate crime against a Vietnamese man, present an award to the cast of Everything Everywhere All At Once was certainly a choice.”
In 1988, Wahlberg was convicted of assaulting two Vietnamese American men while trying to steal a few cases of beer from them outside a convenience store (Wahlberg, who was 16 at the time, claimed he was high on PCP). First, Wahlberg knocked one man, Thanh Lam, unconscious with a wooden stick, then he punched another man, Hoa (“Johnny”) Trinh. Investigators noted at the time that Wahlberg used several racist epithets and slurs during the attack.
Wahlberg was eventually charged with attempted murder but pleaded guilty to felony assault, earning a two-year prison sentence but only serving 45 days. (Prior to this incident, Wahlberg was also part of a civil action involving the harassment of a group of Black children.) Wahlberg applied for a pardon in 2014 but decided to drop the bid two years later after it was met with protests from activist groups.
Wahlberg has apologized for the assaults in various interviews over the years, and while trying to obtain the pardon. In a 2016 Q&A at the Toronto Film Festival, he said that he was able to finally meet with Trinh and his family and “apologize for those horrific acts.”
Reps for the SAG Awards did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment as to how Wahlberg came to present the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. (Obviously, it wasn’t publicly known that the Everything Everywhere cast was going to win the prize, though they were certainly favorites going into the night). Representatives for several cast members — including Yeoh, Quan, and Stephanie Hsu — also did not immediately return requests for comment.
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