Of course the more pertinent question is, did Sean Penn really melt his oscar when Zelensky wasn’t allowed to speak at the awards ceremony? But, here we are once again talking about Will Smith smacking Chris Rock at aforementioned ceremony, for the six thousandth time… well the thing is, there’s more to it, unfortunately, and no, its not what you think.
For starters, the Smith Family have been famously ‘woke’ since home-schooled Willow and Jaden first got a whiff of their privilege, switched off their alarm clocks, stated they could control time, were into Osho and being fragments of reality made by higher consciousnesses. Further, Red Table Talks, the show hosted by Jada alongside her mother and Willow, facilitates challenging and hyper woke intergenerational conversations on a wide variety of topics such as race, sexuality, abuse, identity, anything. Don't get me wrong, these are all great things and these conversations are so important (and I just want to make very clear here that you can in fact control time but maybe Osho was a little bit of a dick), however I start to feel jittery when I look at the aftermath of the famous smackin’, which is Will’s apology statement that read : Jokes made at my expense are a part of the job but a joke made about Jada’s medical condition was too much to bear and I reacted emotionally, alongside all this performative wokeness.
Because my question then becomes, how woke is too woke? Or, do you still need some coffee to keep it together?
Now, ok, lets just call it baldness because yes, it is an auto immune disorder, but literally only one that affects your hair follicles and is generally not even very serious other than the stress and anxiety it causes because of…having to live up to (woke-tionary favourite) societal beauty standards, but other than that, no it isn't like autoimmune myocarditis or multiple sclerosis or even being 1/4th cherokee for that matter (or maybe it is a little bit like that), which makes it at the end of the day, just being...bald.
With that in mind, let’s also speak quickly about the reference Rock’s joke made to GI Jane 1, starring the bald Demi Moore. Basically, a previously fully foliaged sex symbol, shaved her head to play a baldy GI sex symbol, created a trend that took the world by storm, had millions of women buying razors and to look sexy and feel good as that cool morning breeze gushed past their poky heads. So in terms of context —what even is going on here?
Don’t ask Will, because at first he’d thought the joke was funny, sitting in his chair laughing while his wife looked maybe a little annoyed, but it could have, definitely should have, stopped there. It’s an ego thing, yes, but what’s worse is its a WOKE EGO thing and WOKE EGOS don’t know if they’re coming or going. WOKE EGOS can be laughing one second and smacking you the next because it takes a lot of time and calculation to figure out when and where and how exactly someone has wronged you on the woke scale and if in fact you are manipulating time enough at that given moment to rise above it.
Unfortunately for Will time wasn’t his bitch as much as Chris Rock was, but WHAT IS EVEN WORSE IS…the standing ovation. Yes, just woken up hollywood must have been clutching their groggy brains tight thinking :
should we stand
well you know, art and artist
correct and he’s generally a man of…you know…poise.
and colour!
which is why we should stand
well to see a man of colour stand up for his woman
is truly remarkable, Hurrah Will Smith you ARE legend.
Incredible how far the savages have come.
And it gets worse! After that total and ultimate debacle well informed, thought through and woke responses to the incident have started to claim that all the hype and shock around the this irrational and internationally broadcast act of violence—whilst Putin is bombing the shit out of Ukraine, whilst we have just come out of a pandemic where Asians faced unspeakable acts of hate, whilst we are living through recreations of George Floyd, of Columbine of everything sick and disturbed and wrong—is that its just white outrage rooted in anti blackness.
How fucking miserable for both of them, Chris Rock and Will Smith, two black men who I’m sure believe themselves to be fully integrated into, cherished by, even go so far as to say a vital part of, this industry that they have both spent the greater parts of their lives in, to be, at the end of the day held to completely different standards of propriety, forget that, of humanity because…well, they are black aren't they?
It's the performative propriety that gets me, and we're all too comfortable with it, comfortable enough to start supporting acts of violence. Like any trend, any attempt to be cool, the hypersensitive, hyper aware and hyper PC stance that woke-ness is distinguished by, has been absorbed wholly by the larger and capitalist fuelled culture it should be consistently questioning and consistently challenging, so the lines are blurry and no one knows where to stand, or rather...when to remain seated.