Good article, though I disagree that Chris Rock wasn’t being deliberately malicious. Historically, it’s kind of been his thing.
Normally speaking, I don’t have a problem with that because one can choose to not feed the zoo animals, as it were. Andrew Dice Clay is going to be at the Talking Stick Resort this month and people keep trying to get me to go. Never in a million years. He’s not funny. He’s mean and I’ve got better things to do with my time. We each get our choice. Him to be an asshole who’s not funny and me to not support that brand of comedy.
Jeff Dunham though? What do I have to do to get a day off cause I’m going? He’s funny.
I disagree though with this notion floating around Twitterverse that anything goes at the Oscars. It’s not the same situation. He wasn’t hired to do a stand up comedy show; the Oscars are not the Chris Rock Comedy Hour. He was hired to be a more rounded entertainer, akin to the host of a variety show for and award program that is going to be aired live.
He knew that. His jokes were vetted by production. So he knew they didn’t want that brand of humor to sully the show. His GI Jane joke was not part of approved material. He slipped it in there without running it by them first. Maybe it was spur of the moment, maybe not. What it wasn’t, was innocent.
Personally, I would have liked to have seen him booed off the stage like Sinead O’Connor was. I get what she was doing with ripping the picture of the Pope in two and I support her right to do so. I agree with the sentiment, in fact. That said, she knew it was going to be inflammatory, same as Chris Rock knew his joke was inflammatory. So when you choose to do something as part of an act that illicits strong emotions, you’re also choosing to deal with the inflamed and angry audience you created.
Nobody but nobody has the right to do whatever they want at any time carte blanche without potential negative blowback or response. Welcome to reality.
People were booing Chris Rock on Oscar night. You can he’s it in the video playback clips. Had Will Smith not lost it, that booing likely would have picked up steam and the conversations around the incident would be completely different. Nobody would be seeing him as a victim, he would be the one getting a harsh public reprimand. He’d more likely be getting something akin to the Sinead O’Connor treatment.
Yeah I realize the irony around female baldness.
I’m hijacking the purpose of your article a bit. Sorry. I can’t see the incident as anything other a giant 3 way screw up and I hate to see one element of that being demonized and pilloried while the other two won’t step up, equivocate, and get a pass. And don’t even get me started on how this is all supposedly Jada’s fault. Did we even hit the two hot minute mark before her choosing to not wear a wig "made" one idiot male tell an off color joke and her rolling her eyes in understandable annoyance "made" another idiot male lose it and assault the first idiot male?
