All right, pulling no punches.
Chris Rock
coming out swinging last night
in his first comedy special nearly a year
after that
infamous slap by
will Smith at the Oscars.
Chris Rock using the stage
to talk about the incident
for the first time
y'all know what happened to me,
getting smacked by Sugar Smith.
It still hurt
I got summertime ringing in my ear.
I love Will Smith my whole life.
I love this my whole life.
I root for this okay.
And now as I watch emancipation
just to see him get hooked.
Oh, boy.
All right.
Here now to talk about all of this
host of Boston Globe today, Sugar
and OJ Lo Woo.
All right, Sugar.
So good to see you.
I mean, rock isn't you.
Thank you.
You know, one to bite his tongue.
I mean, he's
he always has told it like it is,
and then he's laced it with,
you know, funny and comedy,
and that's what he does.
How do you think he
handled it last night?
Well, I thought he handled it brilliantly
because he's the only one
that was flat that day.
You know,
whatever we may think about how
it should have been handled
or what could have happened,
we weren't the one in the incident.
And so waiting a year, digesting it
and then taking it to the stage
where he is in control, where he is
arguably the best to ever do it.
You know,
Chris Rock has been shaping
social commentary with his comedy
for almost 30 years.
So when he does a standup special,
what he talks about
and what he jokes about.
We talk about the next day
at work with our friend
whenever we get together.
And I thought the way he handled
it was to add humor,
but to also reiterate
that he is not a victim,
that there are real people
that are victims of assault and,
you know, and
and different
different types of aggression,
and that he didn't
see himself as a victim
and this was his way through it.
Whether we like it or not,
it's his choice,
you know.
But he did take that year.
I mean,
he obviously has taken that year
to really think about
because there was a lot of pressure
from the very start.
Like we want to hear
we have to say about talking.
He said, no,
you know, when the time is right.
And and he took this year
or however long he you know, he took
and he mixed some real sincerity,
you know, with that comedy.
I mean, just that
that line of, you know, I loved him.
I loved Will Smith, you know,
and so, I mean, and that was sincere.
I mean, he
you could see him
watching Will Smith, you know,
growing up and then then he got real
with how he's really feeling about him
right now.
I mean, that was that was
glass, Fredricka.
Yes.
He addressed what we all
probably felt in that moment,
that this is the fresh prince of Bel Air.
This is the rapper who gave
his parents just don't understand
hey, this is,
as he said, you know, summertime
that he Will Smith
never gave a persona
of of what he displayed
on that Oscar stage.
And so for someone like Chris,
I think he was speaking
to what we all saw, like, oh, my God,
this Will Smith. I don't know this guy.
What is what has happened
unfortunately Chris was the victim of
we don't know who this guy is.
So taking the time to digest it properly
and then speak on it
like I said on his terms,
he is a stand up comedian.
He brought it to the stage.
He found humor in it for himself.
And I think it was cathartic
to get through it, to tell jokes and,
you know, to wrap it
at the end of the special break.
The last 10 minutes of the special
is when he really talks about it.
And I think that also was
very calculated.
It was all well done.
Yeah.
I mean, he
he also
he got real and a lot of things right.
He also
you know, talked about selective outrage.
It's just that here's a portion. Listen,
the thing I have
a problem with is the selective outrage.
One person does something,
they get cancel.
Somebody else does the exact same thing.
Nothing
What do you think he would point
he was trying to make?
Yeah, it is brilliant.
I'd love to hear what how unique really.
I think that. Mhm.
Well I look at it this way.
You can't get angrier than the person
that was actually affected.
And in our culture
now we are so quick to cancel
or say that person must, must go away
even before the people
that were actually affected
have had any chance to weigh in on
how they feel
You know,
the comedian
Jennifer Ray once said
on the People's Party podcast
that when it comes to humor, right,
if you're a comedian,
if you are unwilling to tell your jokes
in a room
full of the people
you're actually talking about,
then you're not really being funny
and you're being more harmful
than humorous.
And the thing about Chris
and his fearlessness,
his selective outrage, he's
talking about these things
and talking about people in a room
full of the people.
He's actually poking fun at.
You'll tell those jokes
wherever to whomever.
And that to me is the real
sticking point, right?
Like you can't get mad at someone
who's willing to put themselves out there
for everyone. Scrutiny, right?
I'm not telling these jokes in a vacuum.
I'm telling them on stage
for everyone
to see whether you are minority
whether you are white,
black, straight, gay, whatever.
I'm going to poke fun at everyone
and I invite you all under the tent
to laugh with me.
Yeah.
He also taught some other lessons
I think, too, in just,
you know, tackling it when you are ready.
I mean, he handled it
at that moment with like,
wait a minute, what just happened?
And he processed it, you know,
and he wasn't ready to talk about
what he was thinking
and feeling at that moment.
He has taken this time
and in his performance and in his dialog,
he he exemplified
really getting his response ready
and right for, you know, for himself
not right for everybody else,
but right for himself.
And you kind of saw that satisfaction,
I think, you know, in that performance
right
we have to be so very careful, as he said
in the special,
that we are not billing emergency rooms
with people
suffering from paper cuts
and overlooking the real victims
and the people
who are really suffering from trauma
or from, you know, aggression.
His he doesn't see himself in that way.
And he has
the ability
to deal with it
in ways other people don't.
So that time away was him
doing what Chris needed.
And I think that's the important part.
We are not on anyone else's time
schedule to deal with our own trauma.
Right.
Whatever happens to or to me
is on our time now. No one else is.