Things went off the chain last night at the Oscars, when Will Smith mounted the stage to assault Chris Rock on live international TV for making a bald joke.
No excuses for that assault.
As a bald person, let me say that baldness is NOT a disability.
That said, Chris Rock’s professionalism was amazing. Shit turned side ways and he still did the job.
Imagine this happening with a fat joke, race joke, marriage joke, age joke, or political joke at any other Oscar show.
Imagine Ricky Gervais being slapped senseless by a line of 20, and you see how crazy Will Smith was.
That said, folks over-reacting to bald jokes has a weird history. In the Bible God sent two BEARS to kill 42 KIDS for mocking “old baldy” Elisha.
Not kidding. From 2 Kings 2:23-25:
Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.
And, by the way, vanity is still a sin.
In a world in which bombs fall from the sky and children starve, and folks die to preserve insulin profiteering, if you (or your wife’s) bruised vanity is the thing that finally moves you to violence, you may have lost the plot.
And ironically, the joke is going to end up on Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, who will end up as comic punchlines for years to come.
If we’ve learned anything from the war in Ukraine, it’s to never fuck with comics.
Bravo, Patrick.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Thank you
ReplyDeleteWell done, sir.
ReplyDelete