Macaulay Culkin was taken to task at the end of last week for some disparaging remarks he had made three years prior about Asians.
The Home Alone actor, 40, and his long-time girlfriend, The Suite Life of Zach & Cody actress Brenda Song, 33, surprised fans last week with the announcement that they had welcomed a baby boy, Dakota, into their family after keeping Song’s pregnancy fairly quiet.
Now, comments Culkin made, namely during a chat with Joe Rogan in 2018, have resurfaced and people are unhappy with the comments the actor made regarding Asians.
The past is coming back to bite Macaulay Culkin
Culkin discussed his relationship with Song and told Rogan he was excited to have “tiny little Asian babies” with her someday. Professor Pawan Dhingra, a professor at Amherst College, talked to NBC about why those comments are such an issue.
She explained, “More than anything, he’s exoticizing his partner, and the babies, who were at that point not even born yet. I think that’s a problem in and of itself…when you are turning a person into an exotic object because of their race, or their biracial heritage.”
Dhingra continued, addressing some degrading jokes Culkin mentioned in his interview with Rogan, such as telling Song when he first met her that he could tell she was Asian because the shape of her eyes were a “dead giveaway.” Dhingra said Culkin’s remarks about his partner’s ethnicity only serve to continue the negative cycle of Asians being the brunt of many degrading jokes and bad humor.
“The jokes he was saying to his girlfriend at the time, about the driving and about how she looks, the punchline to all those jokes is being Asian. I don’t want to speak about their relationship in any way. I don’t have any bearing on that. But it does kind of fit a very tired belittling of Asians – that we are the joke. We don’t do anything funny. We can’t make a joke. We are the joke.”
According to People magazine, Culkin also told Rogan that he and the actress were “practicing” in an effort to have kids someday and referred to himself and Song as the new Yoko Ono and John Lennon.
“I’m going to have some pretty babies. She’s Asian, so I’m gonna have tiny little Asian babies. It’s going to be adorable- a bunch of Sean Lennon’s running around the house, that’s what I’m looking for,” he said.
Twitter fans aren’t thrilled either
Twitter users were also displeased with the actor’s past comments and they shared their thoughts on the social media site. One user said “Congrats I guess” with others posting comments like, “We all look like Sean Lennon I guess,” and another adding “JFC. How is it white folks who talk like this don’t lose their (non) white partner well before their relationship gets serious.”
Culkin has yet to offer any response to the backlash as he and Song care for their newborn at their home in California.