What was offensive onion tweet

The satirical newspaper on Sunday referred to the "Beasts of the Southern Wild" star with an expletive intended to denigrate women. The Onion was lambasted overnight and asked for forgiveness Monday. It was crude and offensive -- not to mention inconsistent with The Onion's commitment to parody and satire, however biting. I miss that. After the ceremony ended, the satirical news rag posted the Tweet Heard Round the World—at least the one most complained about on your Facebook news feed.

The internet never forgets. Deep breath:. I absolutely adore The Onion and look to them as a beacon of sanity in the world. Although their headlines and news articles are satirical fun house images of our news cycle, they often seem more real than the actual news. It might not be fact, but The Onion feels real. Unlike Oscar host Seth MacFarlane, who has created a small comedy empire on the initially novel but now tiresome gimmick of comedy shock tactics, The Onion has built its audience on razor-sharp satire that is both relentlessly progressive and unwilling to pull punches.

Rather, I believe they made a shocking, ugly comment to point out that the way the media talks about women is often quite shocking and ugly. That's what often makes art and comedy useful, after all -- their ability to point out the absurdities in the things we never question, in new ways that make us see them differently or feel differently about them.

The problem — as The Onion quickly realized, deleting the tweet within an hour — is that in the process of trying to satirize the media's cruelty toward women, they ended up accidentally perpetuating it.

Worse, they did it at the expense of a child, violating one of the cardinal rules of good comedy and good humanity : Don't punch down. On the latter point, those critics are right: We should be able to broach any subject in comedy, just as we should in any other form of art or discourse. A joke is a statement just like any other, one that draws from and contributes to our ideas about society and culture.

The Onion is publicly apologizing for a controversial Oscars tweet that immediately drew a hailstorm of criticism when it was posted last night. Hannah also apologized to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for stirring controversy on Hollywood's biggest night. But instead of the desperate attempt at shock humor many thought the joke to be, it was actually a clumsy reference to one of host Seth MacFarlane's lines earlier in the Oscars telecast.

Still, the questionable move resulted in an immediate outcry across Twitter — owing mainly to its young subject. Many thought The Onion had crossed the line, and today's unprecedented apology suggests its chief executive agrees. In closing, Hannah says "Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better.

All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry. Subscribe to get the best Verge-approved tech deals of the week.