With the prestigious Academy Awards set to air tonight, some may forget about the more humble Film Independent Spirit Awards that took place on Saturday (Feb. 8). As Aubrey Plaza said in her opening monologue while serving as host of the Spirit Awards, it’s “the second most important award show of the entire weekend.” While the Spirit Awards may not be the most talked-about, it often gets things right where Oscars get them wrong. One of the biggest disappointments of the 2020 Oscars – ahead of the actual ceremony at least – was that Adam Sandler did not receive a Best Actor nomination for his role of Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems. Well, we can celebrate the fact that the Spirit Awards recognized his performance and even awarded him for it.

During his acceptance speech for the Best Male Lead prize, Sandler used a goofy accent, as he tends do, while joking about his Oscars snub. He equated winning a Spirit Award rather than an Oscar to winning Best Personality in a high school yearbook rather than Best Looking. However, he still showed appreciation for the honour he received. “Then all those feather-haired douchebag motherfuckers get their Oscars tomorrow night,” Sandler said. “Their handsome good looks will fade in time, while our independent personalities will shine on forever.” Later in his speech, he breaks from his accent to earnestly express his gratitude for the Safdie Brothers – the directors of Uncut Gems – whose appearances he compares to those of “homeless rabbis”. 

All eyes were on Tom Hanks' son, Chet Hanks, the morning after the 2020 Golden Globes, as news outlets were jumping on the trending topic of his bizarre red carpet moment. A video showed him busting out a Jamaican patois accent while he shouted "BIG UP FIMI WHOL FAMILY SOON COM AT DI AWARDS NA SEEN." A discussion about cultural appropriation inevitably followed, but Hanks emphasized that he was unfazed by any criticism. The next day, he used the accent in another video on his Instagram page, promoting a "BIG CHUNE" he just released as Something Out West. 

Hanks, who uses the stage name Chet Haze, is back to torment all those who were bothered by his Jamaican alter-ego. "HOLD UP WAIT A MINUTE... YALL THOUGHT I WAS FINISHED?!?!????," he started an IG caption, referencing Meek Mill's iconic "Dreams & Nightmares (Intro)." He posted a video of himself entertaining friends at a pool party by talking about how he "no wan no mawga gyal." "Mawga" meaning meager in Jamaican patois, Hanks gives a shoutout to G-Eazy, who seems to prefer thicker women as well.

Hanks preemptively addressed the backlash that this clip was bound to attract. "AND TO ALL YOU LAMES STILL BITCHIN ABOUT APPROPRIATION PREE DIS... YALL CAN “APPROPRIATE” DEEZ NUTZ LMAOOOO," he wrote. The next post on his IG page features him sharing his thoughts on the topic in a more earnest tone. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ???? ????? ?? (@chethanx) on Feb 4, 2020 at 7:20pm PST

Tom Hanks became a meme last night at the Golden Globe awards with his facial expression resonating with many folks on social media. He saw his name hit trends last night after Ricky Gervais’ opening address but elsewhere, his son was off making headlines for a whole other reason.

After previously being criticized for his blatant use of the n-word in resurfaced videos from years ago, Chet Hanks is back in the headlines for some more cringe-worthy reasons. As he walked the red carpet, Tom’s son filmed a video for his socials and, for some reason, he was speaking in a (very fake) Patois accent. It’s important to note that Chet was born in Los Angeles and has no ties that would support his use of an accent from the islands.

Amy Sussman/Getty Images

“Big up the whole island massive, it’s your boy Chet coming straight from the Golden Globes,” said Hanks, a white man, in his absurd accent. The post was captioned as such: “BIG UP FIMI WHOL FAMILY SOON COM AT DI AWARDS NA SEEN, CHUNE IN.” Yikes.

Tom Hanks’ son is an aspiring rapper and he’s ruffled feathers before in the past. This time around, people are just cringing hard at how he butchered his Patois accent with one fan writing, “Tom Hanks is so damn unproblematic, and yet…dis child.”

What do you think about Chet Hanks going viral last night at the Golden Globes?