Awards shows can be fertile terrain for high-profile displays of affection. On Sunday, the Oscars were the site of what appeared to be a relationship soft launch (Teyona Taylor and Aaron Pierre), declarations of burning desire (Zoe Saldaña, for her husband’s hair) and one very public plea for children.
Near the end of his acceptance speech for the best supporting actor award, Kieran Culkin jokingly tried to hold his wife, Jazz Charton, to a promise she made in a parking lot as they were leaving the 75th Emmy Awards to “give” him a fourth child if he won an Oscar.
“And she turned to me — I swear to God this happened, it was just over a year ago — she said, ‘I will give you four when you win an Oscar,’” he recalled in front of several thousand people in the Dolby Theater and nearly 20 million more watching at home. “I held my hand out, she shook it, and I have not brought it up once until just now. You remember that, honey?”
“No pressure,” he continued. “I love you, I’m really sorry I did this again, and let’s get cracking on those kids — what do you say?”
The story seemed to play well in the room, with the in-person audience roaring in laughter at the couple’s long-ago deal. But Mr. Culkin was taking a risk by trotting out the anecdote: Even the most beloved jests and inside jokes — intimacies that every couple amass with time — can read as bizarre or even troubling outside the context of your relationship.
“It was very off-putting for me — it just kind of made me cringe,” said Kim Sauers, 31, of Wilmington, N.C., noting the current political climate and recent efforts to restrict women’s control of their bodies.
Whether it’s during game night with your friends at home, in a video posted online or, yes, in the middle of a prime-time awards show broadcast, there’s always the possibility that the wisecrack you and your partner think is adorable won’t land quite as well with others. Viewers at home wasted no time sharing their reactions on social media, where it seemed that for every expression of delight in the actor’s speech, there was a condemnation of what was seen as a problematic demand.
“He drew it out for so long just to bully her publicly into bearing a child while she repeatedly shook her head ‘no,’” one user wrote on X. “We did not love to see it.”
Others on the platform found it sweet. “I actually think it’s adorable that Kieran Culkin used his speech to flirt with his wife and we should all just mind our own business,” another user wrote.
Ms. Sauers said she understood the many people who argued that it was a joke, not a man actually collecting on a deal, but said that the choice to bring up the agreement on television was in “poor taste” and that it was tacky to “joke about being owed children.”
For her part, Ms. Charton seemed to have been entirely untroubled by her husband’s acceptance speech, even continuing the bit in an Instagram post on Tuesday. “Okay okay hear me out,” she wrote. “Making empty baby pacts may seem foolish but it’s clearly been a great motivator.”
“Would he have come this far if I hadn’t kept promising him more kids if he won awards?” she added. “Probably. But who’s to say?” (A representative for Mr. Culkin did not respond to a request for comment.)
Ava Lamb-Freeman, 39, of Port Jervis, N.Y., didn’t watch the Academy Awards, but when she later saw Mr. Culkin’s acceptance speech, she said she found his dry sense of humor to be funny.
“I felt like it was lighthearted, and that he was joking and more interested in recalling this warm conversation they had,” she said.
While she allowed that the speech might prove a little embarrassing in retrospect, she thought that the moment between him and his wife was genuine. A mother of three, Ms. Lamb-Freeman said she understood the difficulty of trying to determine how many children to have.
“I also can relate to how complex the negotiation might be when you decide to have another kid, especially past two,” she said. “It’s like this big leap of faith for both parties.”
Ms. Lamb-Freeman said she could imagine herself making a similar joke in front of people, but she noted that context mattered. For instance, she most likely wouldn’t have said so in front of couples who were having trouble conceiving.
“Like, it’s not going to be funny anymore,” she said.
Between you and your partner, it might be perfectly harmless to joke about sending each other to the doghouse, or poking fun at a new wig or an eccentric hat, and that’s OK. For many, teasing can be a sign of a deeper bond where jokes can happen, with the understanding that it’s all in good fun.
Ms. Lamb-Freeman described a recent bit with her husband, in which she jokingly offers him opportunities “to redeem himself,” like picking something up for her from the store. While she doesn’t remember exactly what started the bit, it became a playful way to make each other laugh.
“But if someone else heard me say that, it’d sound kind of weird,” she said.
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