Hi.
So, Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars yesterday. Did you guys hear about this? It's all over the news and social media. You must've heard. Chris Rock made a rude joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith's hair and Will Smith slapped him seconds later. It was pretty wild. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it yet. Also, why are you here? Who are you? Nobody reads my blog. Nobody! What brought you to this blog? Did you google "Will Smith Chris Rock Oscars" and google brought you here? If so, that's awesome. I have a post many years ago about how much I hate The Big Bang Theory and it's got like 10,000 hits, which is a big deal for me. Maybe this blogpost can get 11,000 hits. That'd be 10,999 more hits than Chris Rock received from Will Smith. Right in the face!
I don't know if I like pop culture anymore. The perception of "pop culture" as it stands now. I think that's just me being in my mid-30s. A straight white male in his mid-30s. Yeah. You should stop reading at this point if you haven't already. Can you believe what I'm saying?
No, what I'm talking about is how we process pop culture now. How we chew things up and spit them out. How we consume it. It's all so fucking weird and fractured and there's always "sides" to take, right? It's not just crazy off-the-cuff live moments, either. It's literally everything.
When I started this blog in January 2010, I wanted to write about movies. I wanted to review new releases and occasionally write about things that were happening in the world of movies. Things looked a lot different back then. We had Twitter, but the discourse surrounding movies and pop culture didn't seem so dizzying and maddening then. Obviously, a lot has happened then. A lot of terrible shit has happened since then. And by the way, I'm not talking "outrage" or "cancel culture" or any of that. I'm strictly talking about how we consume the shit that happens in the world.
Whether you saw it live or heard about it then looked it up, you looked up reactions to the Will Smith/Chris Rock incident. That's why you're here, after all. Now you're reading some random-ass blogger's opinion on the matter and you're disappointed cause I haven't really said anything yet. You probably stopped reading at this point and I don't blame you. My point is, when you looked up reactions to the incident, what did you notice? Did you notice how immediately there were sides to take, just like with everything else? And not only were the sides to take, but if you took the other side, you were a dumb piece of shit. Right? It's fucking crazy how we consume pop culture! What the hell are we doing? And why are we doing like this?
There are reasoned takes out there, surely. They, unfortunately, get drowned out by the craziest takes. I lost my passion for writing about movies - mostly because life got in the way, but also, when I stepped outside of "internet movie world", when I stopped outside the world of Twitter, I found the world to be a much more enjoyable place. Does that mean bad shit isn't happening in the world? Of course it is. I see that too. But that's the thing. Bad shit IS happening in the world. Around you. Literally around you. And around me. I don't need to get into specifics, although I can tell you that it feels like people are fucking crazy right now. You go outside and it's not hard to find them. They are usually loud. You go to the grocery store or a restaurant or you're driving - you're gonna find crazy assholes. They're everywhere. That's kinda my problem. I don't need to see those people, then come onto the internet and rub elbows with MORE of those people. I really don't! Life is exhausting enough as it is, isn't it? Like, enough.
This brings me back to Chris Rock/Will Smith. First, there was the initial shock of the moment, which I feel we don't appreciate enough! That was absolutely insane. Chris Rock was right, one of the craziest moments in live television. Of course it was! We're talking about one of the biggest movie stars of all-time slapping one of the biggest comedians of all-time right in the face during the middle of the Oscars! An award show that, yes, has lost a lot of it's luster and is harder and harder to get excited about every year, but it's still a big, live event and all of Hollywood (more like Hollyweird, amirite? lololol j/k j/k guys) attends. It's Hollywood's biggest night! And guess what? Two of Hollywoods biggest stars ended up in a crazy-ass, live altercation. It was absolutely insane and the moment it happened, it was clear this was going to be talked about everywhere by everyone - thus showing what kinda power the Oscars have if they do something people actually give a shit about.
The moment itself was insane. That's what we should focus on and enjoy! You know what? Nobody died. Chris Rock will be fine. Will Smith apologized, rightfully so. It was a shitty thing he did to Chris Rock and he should not have done it. The fact that it happened though? I mean, it happened. It really, really happened. What a batshit crazy moment. Why can't we just soak it in? Minutes after it happened there were immediately takes and think pieces about the incident. This, right here, what I'm writing - it's an anti-thinkpiece. I think. Cause I don't want to really get into the ramifications of any of it. What about the children? I talked to my son about the incident afterward and it was a solid conversation. I'd give it a B+. He seemed to realize and acknowledge right away that... no, you shouldn't slap somebody in the face even if they insult you or someone you love. Some out there might disagree with that and uh... no, I'm not getting into that. Don't make me! You're trying to pull me into an argument I don't wanna have. If that's how you feel, how can I convince you otherwise? You were raised different than me? Ok, so you were. Let's just leave it at that. I'll just remember that and try not to insult you or any of your family members anytime soon.
(Although, I mean c'mon, people don't just go around hitting people in public, do they? And there can be consequences. If you hit someone who insulted you, they can press charges against you! Why would you want that? There's really nothing good that can come out of hitting someone unless you're Will Smith at the Oscars. Now, if you're forced to hit someone out of self-defense, that's a completely different story, but that's not what this was.)
Please don't read what's inside the parenthesis. I want to just get all of this off my chest and the best place for me to do that is on this blog that nobody reads. If you read this, just know that I love you no matter what crazy opinion you have about this. I mean, at the end of the day, it's all pretty trivial - what we think. What's going on between Will Smith and Jada? That's a whole other thing and that's something they have to sort out - not us. We just get to enjoy a crazy batshit moment that happened. A crazy batshit moment that I don't condone by the way! And by the way, Will Smith won the Best Actor Oscar right after! Is this real life??
I guess at the end of the day, what I'm trying to say is - can't we just enjoy things? Is it impossible? I feel like it is. I just watched CODA not too long ago. Like an hour ago. I enjoyed it. It was good. Great? The best ever? Worthy of its Oscar? Does any of that really matter? Unless somebody gets slapped, I don't really care what happens on the Oscars. Happy for everyone that won though, good for them.
