The Onion catching heat for calling 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis the c-word

The satirical home of the internet is the wildly popular and often hilarious site The Onion. They’ve made an art form out of lampooning pop culture realities with fake news while sometimes pushing the lines of decency. While I’m personally a huge fan, even I have to admit they went too far when they sent out a tweet calling Beast of the Southern Wild’s breakout 9-year-old star Quvenzhané Wallis the c-word during last night’s Academy Awards broadcast.

Wallis was the youngest actress to ever be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars for her unforgettable turn as Hush Puppy from the Bath Tub. During last night’s event she was charming and showed a genuine youthful zeal and sense of awe while she sat among all the megastars of Hollywood. During the event The Onion ripped out the following attempt at sardonic humor at Wallis’ expense via their official Twitter feed:

The Onion’s wit, charm and sometimes gut-busting effectiveness is often rooted in their fierce harshness but I believe their actions in regards to the above misstep proves that this went beyond humor to a realm of tastelessness. The action I speak of is that the site removed the tweet. The Onion apparently decided on its own, after-the-fact, that the tweet was indeed a poor choice. While I get what they were going for here – bottom-line, when it comes to kids, leave them out of it.

BuzzFeed reached out to the editors for The Onion and have yet to receive a reply.