It seems like the whole Will Smith-Chris Rock thing needs some added juice to keep it going. But what? They're both Black, so there's no racial angle. They're both cis men, so there's no gender or sexual orientation angle. They're both the same age. They were both raised sort of vaguely working class. They both grew up in the northeast (Philadelphia, New York). Neither went to college.
These guys could practically be twins. There's just nothing to mine. However, Wikipedia informs me that Rock has a learning disorder. This means we can all redirect our outrage to the fact that Will Smith assaulted a guy with a learning disorder. That will have to do unless someone can come up with something better.
Ugh please just don’t Kevin. This whole incident doesn’t need any more oxygen than it’s already gotten. A man did something horrible to a woman and then another man dealt out revenge to the first man. Tale as old as time, only this incident of “two men fighting over a woman” was viewed by millions around the globe. Stay classy and let them sort it out on their own, Kevin.
Yeah, I love doing this too. I'll find a story that I don't care about. And then I'll go around, finding people who write about the thing I don't care about, and I'll perform my outrage about how I think they shouldn't be writing about the thing I claim to not care about.
Good clean fun.
I think KD is this close to joining Compact.
Oh, please. They did it live in front of millions. You don't get to play the "let us work that out in private" card at any point after that.
Good god, Lefties are overly precious.
Rock (who I rather dislike) did not do anything "horridble" to Ms Smith. He mocked her in a roast context. That is so far from horrible as to be absurd. Obnoxious, yes, horrible... ridiculous.
First world over priviledge.
I'm still trying to figure out what was so horrible about what he said ... particularly in the context of the awards show tradition of bad jokes being made about various stars in attendance.
There's some speculation on the internets to the effect that Rock wasn't aware Smith's wife suffers from the condition in question, and that it was just a general joke about military-style haircuts for women. No idea if that's valid or not.
In my view context is everything. It's ungallant (in general) to mock another human's appearance. That said, it's much worse when the target is in the audience. Joan Rivers made a living doing jokes about Elizabeth Taylor's weight, but I'm pretty sure she refrained in the off chance the latter was in attendance.
So, Rock's uncouth, and something of a vulgar downward-puncher. But Smith is deranged, as much as I think I get the instinct to address an insult to one's beloved the old-fashioned way.
Rock has been making jokes at other people’s expense for years. Doesn’t excuse it, but that’s kind of an integral part of comedy. And what he said just wasn’t that bad, at least from my perspective.
Rock has been making jokes at other people’s expense for years.
Making jokes at "other people's expense" is a much more general phenomenon than mocking their appearances or ailments. Politicians and executives and other powerful figures have rightly been fair game forever, at least when they're caught in corrupt activities, affairs, hypocrisy, etc. As I wrote above, it's possible Rock wasn't aware the woman has a medical condition. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But just pure mockery of fat people qua fat people, or ugly people qua ugly people, or bald people qua bald people (or whatever), strikes me more as crude or even cruel than funny as such. YMMV.
Doesn’t excuse it, but that’s kind of an integral part of comedy.
Yes. It doesn't excuse it. Agreed. I mean, I'm under no illusion the world is going to change to suit my particular likes and dislikes, but there you have it. I'd recommend catching some of Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby's recent work. She's been enlightening and educational IMHO on the general phenomenon of "punching down."
And what he said just wasn’t that bad, at least from my perspective.
I agree. It wasn't "that bad." And I also don't find Smith's slap "that bad." The whole thing is taking up way too much of people's time (mine included). Digital rubbernecking.
Digital rubbernecking … spot on.
Leave it to the conservative to pick and choose which toxic misogyny he wants to defend.
You don't insult a man's wife over a medical condition.
Eh. Sure you do. If you're a comic, performing a format where gentle roasting of your audience is the norm, of course you do.
But if you're a big-shot in the audience who receives a little of that gentle roasting, what you do is you laugh it off gracefully. It comes with being a highly-paid famous person. Maybe you make a rude reply, accompanied by a rude gesture. Maybe you take to twitter, where you've got vastly more reach than the insult comic who offended you, and express yourself there.
The thing you definitely don't do is send your husband to the stage to assault a much smaller older man, knowing that his wealth and privilege will protect him from any consequences. That's just plain bullying.
Sure you do. If you're a comic, performing a format where gentle roasting of your audience is the norm, of course you do.
We have different definitions of "gentle roasting." But in any case, if you're a big-shot comic, you also shouldn't hide behind the "this is the norm!" line. And no, that didn't justify Smith hitting him, but let's not act like comics are and have been cruel and misogynistic for quite a long time.
The erstwhile defender of his wife ought to be able to state his position without dropping repeated F bombs in front of millions. Rock's crime was at worst poor taste. Smith was out of control and generally being a complete jerk in resorting to violence. Don't know if he really deserves a oscar for acting, as in playing King Richard he was just (in the words of Ringo) acting naturally.
Indeed.
Obnoxious but hardly "horrible" or any of the other Drama Llama exaggeration going on. And as a "medical condition" her hair loss is really quite a modest problem. Not a non-problem to be sure but it's not a life threatening nor even a truly disfiguring condition (as her rather attractive look shows).
It's some extraordinary Rich People priviledge to consider this something other than a mild irritation.
I love that you have now posted multiple times in a thread about something so unimportant that people shouldn't be worrying about it.
So we can tolerate physical violence but not overposting?
Overposting from someone criticizing people for overposting is much worse than physical violence. Right up there with nuclear war.
Well, that sure escalated.
May as well be the heat death of the universe.
I'm going to buy Will Smith a Sno-Cone.
Actually I think accusing someone of criticing for over-posting but said person actually said nothing about over-posting is worse than genocide.
Oddly I never said any of these things myself, but it's internet time killing.
I saw no evidence she sent her husband to the stage or to do anything. Very odd that you see a grown man commit a violent assault and blame the woman sitting calmly in her chair for his actions.
Don't know if she actually asked him to say or do anything (my guess is no), but there is evidence Will Smith himself didn't think Rock said anything wrong, since he was also laughing at the joke initially. It wasn't until he realized his wife was upset that he got out of his seat and started walking towards Rock.
none of that has any relevance to her being culpable for smith's actions or sending him to hit rock. the responsibility for smith's assault lies solely with himself. but it's notable the he also tried to avoid and shift blame to his wife, saying something like "love makes you do crazy things". nope. love didn't make you do that. anger, jealousy and your own bad choices led to it.
Love isn't a person, it's an emotion. It doesn't shift the blame to her at all.
i did it because i love you is a classic excuse, usually of violent abusive men, to shift blame to their partner. i see his "love made me do it" as a pretty obvious blame shift attempt, and it's pretty obvious that many in the media are doing exactly the same thing. suggesting jada somehow forced him to go attack another man with her terrible anger.
Absolutely.
Exactly!
Roasting requires consent.
Donald Trump agrees with you. Antonin Scalia enjoyed roasts. Different poisonalities.
Trump never forgave Obama for roasting him at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I did find interesting the story of Sister Prejean (leading advocate for the abolition of the death penalty) running into Scalia at an airport. She marched up to him and said "are you Scalia?". He replied, "well, someone has to be".
I'm sure Trump has no problem with roasting people not named Trump. But the fact is that the man has no sense of humor that most of us would recognize - it's one of the creepier things about him.
The 2016 Al Smith Dinner says, "Hello.... is it me you're looking for?"
Hey, Will Smith, how does she comb her hair so nice with a damp rag?
Would be an insulting joke. It actually is insulting and it's a lot funnier.
Comparing her to Demi Moore in G.I. Jane is insulting only to a puffed up man-baby who is looking for something to freak out about.
Has anyone asked Demi Moore about how insulting it is to be compared to her?
I find this "insult" of being compared to Demi Moore as extremely ironic.
My recollection is that GI Jane was the most bad-ass woman since Joan of Arc. I probably would have left my wife for her if she had winked at me.
The argument that the joke wasn't insulting because Demi Moore is attractive doesn't make sense. We all know the punchline of the joke is intended to be that Jada lost her hair. "You look like another famous, beautiful actress" is not a joke. That joke in no way justifies Smith's insane assault on Rock, and he should have been removed by security and probably charged with a crime. But pretending the joke wasn't intended as a knock on her hair loss is silly.
I was thinking it was so little of a knock that the comparison all but overcame it and even if intended truly meanly could easily have been turned right around.
Why does a slap constitute a crime, but broadcasting someone's disability without consent to live tv does not?
Because Jada Smith previously publicly embraced her hair loss in a tweat, and posted a video to TikTok the "I don't give 2 craps what peopel think of this bald head."
Getting upset over hair loss is definitely a first world problem. Particulary because she still looks great.
because one is a crime and the other is not a crime.
It was insulting to the woman being insulted. I or You don't get to choose what another finds insulting.
Certainly, but consider the context.
True, although I think what Rock did was more an insensitive/hurtful thing to say than an actual insult, either way, you don't throw a punch over an insulting or hurtful comment.
You also don't assault people for saying things you don't like. And an assault is worse than insult. I thought we were all agreed on that.
I guess Will should've used the comedic slight to run for President, and then turned the power of the US government on his perceived enemies.
But then again Will isn't a phony coward with small hands.
Real men beat the crap out of others because they can get away with it because if you call the cops you're the pussy, is the lesson aspirational dirt will take from this.
The hell of it is, he shouldn't HAVE to call the cops. The crime was committed on camera. All the elements of simple assault can be proven without any cooperation from the victim at all.
It's a commonly held, and largely wrong, belief that when a victim doesn't want to "press charges" the justice system is forbidden to act. It's significant that criminal cases are filed as "people (of some jurisdiction or other) v. Defendant" and not "victim v. defendant." Rock was the most proximate victim of Smith's assault, but when that assault goes unpunished, everyone who wants to be able to go about their business without the threat of being assaulted by larger, younger, richer and more powerful men is worse off.
LAPD reached out to Rock, who declined, and they've let it lie. They know where their bread is buttered in that town...
Where's Mark Fuhrman when you need him?
Come on, real men don't call the cops over being slapped.
You would think...
Don't know if you know about LA area police politics, but we have LAPD, and then we also have the LA Sheriff's Dept. for the county, which is much bigger than the city. And the current LA Sheriff (it's an elected position) is a very Trumpy guy named Alex Villanueva, a real publicity hog. It would make a lot of sense for Villanueva to arrest Smith and say the wokesters (who he always criticizes) wouldn't do it so he was forced to. At the same time, he's a bit of a star-f***er and I imagine on the other side of the ledger, a big movie star is someone he wants to be pals with. But I'd be shocked if the idea of arresting Smith is not something he's considered as a publicity stunt. Villanueva loves trash talking black people and saying they're always committing crimes, so it would fit his MO in some key ways.
That's the best you could come up with? You need to get on twitter more. As I understand it this incident was as bad as 9/11, and somebody suggested (albeit tongue-in-cheek) that if you look at the slo-mo there had to be a second slapper.
Liked the tweet about the guy who claimed it was all staged. He googled the image of the alleged assailant and discovered he was a paid actor.
KD your post is in poor taste. A black man assaulted another black man on live TV and now idiots defend the indefensible. I can see a young kid in Philadelphia emulating this behaviour because of who did it. Smith is a thug and should be shunned. Even if the joke had been remotely insulting which wasn’t, his reaction is a step back for those who foment peace and inclusivity. In a civilized society, we try to emulate civility and decorum which was sorely lacking in WS case. I would not want to be in the same room with this psycho.
Really? Gotta go to the "thug" label, with all the casual racism attached to it?
How about just leaving it at "Smith committed a crime and behaved extremely badly/unhinged"?
FFS.
Can we still call Putin a thug?
Do you understand the difference between calling Putin a thug and calling a black man a thug?
The dictionary definition of thug fits WS perfectly. I read an article on one professor in NPR in 2015 who has issues with the term and prefers ruffian (whatever) but even Obama uses the term so I don’t subscribe to the term having racial overtones. If someone behaves like a thug, meaning violently, then they are a thug.
Right.... as Thugs are so well known to be giving a guy a slap on the face. totally not an absurd over the top and in US context racialised insult.
Good god, the guy slapped.... slapped another guy who was clearly more startled than anything. Slapped for God's sake.
Get a grip.
Eh, Smith slapped a guy.
Yes, technically it can be a crime, but really. He slapped a guy who then carried on.
'Committed a crime ' is really a ridiculous characterisation.
Yes, technically it can be a crime, but really. He slapped a guy who then carried on.
Agree 100%, but this is America we're talking about. Men have been arrested, convicted and required to register as sex offenders for urinating outdoors. I'm not making that up.
It's literally true, regardless of the level of crime committed. It's not what I would say, but given that the OP was clearly looking to highlight criminality by using "thug", I was providing a not-racially-tinged phrasing option.
To add to Jasper's comment, it's also notable that there are (black) men serving time for doing less.
So you get to be racist while defending someone who was making light of a disability?
What I want to know is, who won an Oscar and for what. Funnily, I haven't yet seen the results posted online, just more stuff about Slapgate.
We don't see news stories about the Oscar nominees or winners because no one has watched or heard of these danged movies. The last couple years more than others because the movies that do well streaming are "fun" movies like Red Notice or Free Guy.
I had never even heard of Coda until a couple days ago.
I had to look it up on Wikipedia. I wouldn't have gone to see it, anyway. To be honest, "Dune" is about the only movie I've seen this year...
I tried to watch Nightmare Alley but after about half an hour I suddenly had a really vivid idea where it was headed and didn't want to watch anymore of it just to find out if I was right.
Having watched that movie last night and suffered through the whole thing, let me assure you that you made the right call.
I got stuck abou halfway through when I realized I'd been falling asleep intermittently. Glad I'm not the only one! I'd hoped for a lot better from Guillermo del Toro. (Bill the Bull??)
The space aliens Smith worships as gods will have their sweet revenge in the end.
Strange, I thought he did do with his bare hands…
Right up there with eats shoots and leaves…
So. Did so… Edit feature. Please!
If I were jada pinkett smith I would be furious at my husband for acting like a fool and embarrassing my family. Will is in the dog house…or he should be
Given her track record of embarrassing him I bet she will do just that. Publically and often.
I don't choose to follow much celebrity news, especially since I favor books & music to movies, but if some unavoidable previous headlines about the couple are factual, maybe Will Smith should protect his marriage as much as his wife's sensitivity about alopecia.
The Will Smit incident reminded me of this:
Many years ago my daughter was on a softball team. One of the dads was an obnoxious asshole. He talked rudely about the quality of play of the other girls, often within earshot of their parents. I expected that at some point there would be a fight. One day he called one of the moms a fucking bitch. Her husband wasn’t at the game. I wasn’t either (very unusual for me) and my wife informed me of the incident. There was a game the next day, and I told my wife there would be a fight. My wife was surprised. I told her that a man can’t live in his own house if his wife tells him another man said something like that to her and he does nothing about it. He knows he would hear about it for the rest of his life, how he did nothing after such an insult. I told my wife I might be able to diffuse the situation by getting the guy to apologize and to get between them when the expected confrontation happened. She said “no good deed goes unpunished” and I decided to refrain.
Sure enough, the next day I saw the aggrieved husband come racing up the street in his car. I told my wife “here it comes”. The two guys spoke briefly and then fists flew. They struggled on the ground and the girls dove in with them. It was as awful as you can imagine. We finally pulled everyone apart and went and played the game.
I still feel a bit guilty about no attempting to intervene. I’m an atheist, but Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers”. So if I’m wrong I may have blown my opportunity to get into heaven.
Did this happen, by any chance, in the Deep South? I'm unaware of any "defend the Honour of Your Wife" rule in other venues.
Nope. Liberal Bay Area. Same rules apply everywhere I’m afraid.
(sigh) My bigotry is exposed!
South-bashing is evergreen with some.
The South likes to be proud of their pride. And lots of Bay Area people are from there.
I thought Jesus said "blessed are the cheesemakers".
The whey to salvation.
Just Swiss cheese.
This was a ratings hit.
It involved some hands-on learning.
In response to a disrespectful punch line.
A veritable slap in the face.
A splash in the punch bowl.
And now, everyone's talking smack.
In a few days, it'll blow over.
Not even a glove used. Social distancing fail.
Not everyone appreciates slapstick comedy.
Surely though they can appreciate when someone gets the upper hand.
Very cheeky, no less.
Smacked in the gob, there should be a word...
Plenty of buzz, but not the hit anyone wanted.
Bravo, y'all!
Why does it need a special angle? Why isn't just the simple fact of assault enough?
Kevin is mocking #idpol.
The post is as much about Smith & Rock as Conor Friedersdork is concerned about the proper way to make a banh mi.
Right, I got that, but feigned not getting it because the mockery fell so far off the mark/was tasteless.
This was not your best post Kevin. Kind of shabby actually. Everything you mentioned is completely immaterial. A comic makes a fairly lame joke, likely lamer than it seems at first blush if Rock knew the reason for the shaved head, but really, there have been a lot of more offensive and lame jokes made in the history of awards shows. Then Will Smith gets up on national TV and smacks Chris Rock. Hard. That's assault. No, actually, I think it's assault and battery. It's not hard to think that Will Smith, in his world of wealth and privilege and status, thinks he's done nothing wrong. I don't know. This is just Hollywood and all but I think he should be charged. In any case it's a very bad example of behavior to have floating around our popular culture.
The bad joke is simple assault. The slap is battery.
The bad joke was a bad joke and from my perspective kind of mean assuming Rock knew the cause of her shaved head. But a lot of what passes for humor these days is kind of mean. In Adam Smith's remarks on the death of his friend David Hume he said something like "Hume was a great wit without any of the malignity that most people mistake for wit"
But that said, the joke was not assault. Jada Pinkett Smith had no reason to fear imminent body harm. The slap however, was battery.
bad jokes are a crime is the worst hot take i've seen so far.
Had Will Smith had the brains to wag his finger at Chris Rock, and perhaps later post 20 or 30 seconds of improvised rapping about Rock being a jerk, women deserving respect, black hair being off limits for comics, etc, he'd be a giant hero today, the new Tom Hanks as most loved actor in Hollywood.
But he's an idiot, his movie sucked, and his talent has always been questionable. And now he's revealed as a stupid violent loon. His loss.
Two men, one woman, and a bottle of whiskey. What could possibly go wrong?…
That's how so many violent crimes begin...
That's a country song right there.
Funniest Drum parody ever
Your first A+ post.
Thin news day? Had to post something, anything, and this was it?
Everybody Haaaaaaaaaaates Chris….
Who else thinks Will Smith will not see his invitations decrease with the same proportion as Dave Chappelle?
We can only hope.
If Jada had wanted to slap Rock, she could have. She didn't need hubby to do it for her.
Kevin, you are missing two angles that has already been promoted: it's the "Violence doesn't solve anything" angle, and then "why didn't the producers do something about this IMMEDIATELY, instead of just letting the show go on?"
Both of these are stupid. The word "violence" is used way too broadly. "Violence" is a drive-by shooting, or a guy with a bat fighting a guy with a knife, or a dictator bombing a maternity hospital. A dude giving another dude a slap because the second dude made a disrespectful joke about the first dude's wife is not "violence" -- it's a statement.
As for the second angle, how do you have a contingency plan for something like this?
Dude, this bs about "dissing" a "dude's" wife at an event where jokes about self important dudes sitting up front are the order of the day is a pretty lame excuse for some bad behavior. It's funny when Yosemite Sam does it in the cartoons and you may think it's not violence . Compared to bombing civilians it's very minor league but it's still violence. In fact the law says it's assault and battery.
It was a lame comment from Rock, much lamer if he knew the cause of Jada Pinkett Smith's hair loss but everyone past the age of seven has other ways of dealing with that.
glad you came with the smart new angles of "hitting someone isn't violence" and "major event organizers can't plan for violence or other unlikely contingencies".
Oh, God help me! I read something else about it.
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/28/the-view-chris-rock-will-smith-oscars-slap/
So now there is a third angle: "Comedians are in danger everywhere." Please.
How about this? Don't make fun of a woman's medical condition . . . ever . . . but especially when her husband is sitting right there. Gonna get slapped.
Is Michael Tracey ghostwriting for Kevin Drum now?
Is the slogan of Jabberwocking going to be "Black Trans Lives Matter"?
What would Ted Cruz have done?
https://twitter.com/Le202nard/status/1508442318340505600
The Dean Martin comedy roasts "back in the day" featured Don Rickles. He of course made a living out of insulting others along with making comments about his Jewish religion and his wife.
Some of his lines would be considered blasphemy today
Yet he was a warm, beloved comedian who would do anything for anyone in Hollywood(or New York).
Glad I don't watch TV unless its news.......it certainly has gone down hill