Top Olympics Official Fired Over Joke He Made in 1998

Actor, director, comedian, manga artist and former ceremony director who was appointed for the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, it seems Kentarō Kobayashi has many reasons to be recognized.

Instead, he is gaining worldwide attention for a disgusting joke he made 23 years ago.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Kobayashi was “removed” from the game after a 1998 comedy clip replayed in which he allegedly joked about Holocaust.

The headline news spanned the list of controversial stories surrounding the Tokyo games, begging us to ask: What happenning?

The WSJ credits the release of two other creative team members – one of which comes later Hiroshi Sasaki, the main creative director of the opening ceremony, introduced the idea of ​​placing an oversized female celebrity in a pig costume in March.

The other came earlier this week when the musical director opened the ceremony Keigo Oyamada admitted to bullying a classmate in the 1990s. (Actually it’s a lot worse than it sounds.)

So the Kobayashi incident marks the third time it has been removed from the game’s creative committee within a few months. Combine these distinct developments with pervasive socio-political issues such as transgender athletes, coronavirus, Black Lives Matter protests, etc., and you have a recipe for a disastrous ideological dogma that is consuming this world.

Kobayashi is facing considerable heat because of the joke extrapolated from his 1998 skit, a joke that revolved around children playing the game “Holocaust on paper”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waw9UPWfzd4

You can check out scene yourself (make sure to enable closed captioning if you do), but in short, the controversial moment goes something like this:

The duo seen in the clip is called Ramens, theo Daily Monster.

As they were sitting on stage, discussing the different uses of paper, one actor said he had “humanoid paper”, then stepped aside and pretended to pick up something before sit down.

Then came the stone man.

Kobayashi’s character says, according to the translation, “That must remain since you said, ‘Let’s play [the] Game of Holocaust. ‘”

When the media caught Kobayashi’s nasty joke at the age of 23, an uproar ensued – prompting Olympic officials to fire him on Thursday.

“We discovered that Mr. Kobayashi, in his own performance, used a phrase mocking a historical tragedy,” said Olympic Organizing Committee President Seiko Hashimoto, according to the statement. Related press.

He added: “We deeply apologize for causing such a development the day before the opening ceremony and causing inconvenience and concern to many stakeholders as well as the people of Tokyo and the rest of the land country.

Others expressed their concerns about the skit, including Rabbi Abraham Cooper, vice-chancellor and global director of social action for the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center (a human rights group).

“Any person, no matter how creative, has no right to mock the victims of the Nazi genocide,” Cooper said, according to the AP.

He then said that the joke was inexcusable for another reason, noting that Nazi Germany not only perpetrated injustices against Jews, but also against other groups, including the disabled.

“Any association of this person with the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of 6 million Jews and cruelly mock the Paralympics,” he added.

Kobayashi’s joke is indefensible, and that’s not what you want when you see an Olympic official’s record.

But, a 23-year-old incident (albeit, a bad one) ordered him to be banned from participating Olympic – and possibly ruin his image and career forever?

Better yet, does this mean that it is impossible to reform these days, to regret one’s actions, to exercise the right to get rid of the wrong things?

I am a firm believer in facing the consequences of your actions, but I also understand that people are prone to mistakes. (I’m sure all those who criticize Kobayashi have lived a perfect life and have never said anything that could even be from afar. be interpreted as offensive, correct?)

In law, however, the concept of criminal intent emerges over time. Did the suspect have malice when committing the crime?

We can apply some iterations of that concept to Kobayashi: Did he make his joke with malicious intent?

I’d like to think he didn’t (actually I’d like to think someone wouldn’t be so twisted), but it to be a very stupid, juvenile and insensitive joke to make.

However, humans are malleable, just like time. And it’s safe to assume that Kobayashi – like the world – was at least a little different back then.

I invite you to consider several factors here: Entertainment used to be less accommodating for sensitive than today and the true nature behind Kobayashi’s joke is still up for debate, even to the point of CBS News said that he “seemed to be joking about the Holocaust.”

People who commented on YouTube the clip even comes to Kobayashi’s defense.

“So the joke is about the horror of kids playing ‘Holocaust on paper’, not about the Holocaust,” one user wrote.

Another user responded to the comment, saying: “As soon as I heard about this, I knew it was overblown. Cancel the culture strike again. The media was literally running as he was ‘caught’ on camera making ‘anti-Semitic remarks’ regarding the Holocaust. Totally lost and missing points. “

To be it out of context? Has the media reaction to this joke been overblown?

Perhaps we should treat the whole ordeal the way that mistakes (at least, not adverse ones that harm or kill others) should be treated: as a learning experience, an opportunity association for improvement.

It can be said that, if Kobayashi gets the chance, he probably won’t do it again.