#chronic illness cw

LIVE

So, the whole Will Smith / Chris Rock thing.

It’s interesting as always to see how people on my social media (very, very skewed liberal of course) are reacting. And this case is especially interesting because I get a sense that a number of my friends feel like they must have some take on this because so many identity groups and hot-button social issues are involved (black people, women, specifically black women, specifically black women’s hair, how we talk about illness/disorders, offensiveness in comedy, etc.), yet these people don’t know what tribalized formula to follow for what the Correct Opinion is and so they’re all choosing different and incompatible takes focusing on different aspects of how multiple people obviously behaved badly here.

Like, I have one Facebook friend (who I feel bad about how many times I’ve mentioned on this blog) who among other things is a very strident feminist who largely defines herself around how men have mistreated her, who had ample opportunity here to frame this in terms of toxic masculinity (Smith jumping to violence) or white-knighting or Smith centering the offense on himself without regard to whether acting as ill-bred as it is to physically assault on national TV might make actually the event even worse for his wife. But this particular friend is also of the anger-fetishizing, “sometimes an oppressed minority has no choice but to be physically violent because of all the verbal/psychological violence they face all the time” type, and this is evidently what won out: she contends that Will Smith is 100% admirable for what he did and that she’d do the same.

Then there’s my fellow millennial from Democrats Abroad (back when I lived abroad) who essentially wrote an essay where practically every other sentence contained a disclaimer/qualifier about which identities involved she did or didn’t belong to as a white woman (such identities included “celebrity” and “millionaire” as well as “black” and “man/woman”) and therefore what she felt she was allowed or not allowed to have an opinion on, but ultimately concluded that both men were incredibly out of line and that if she were Jada, she would be “mortified” at Will’s actions: he was a man acting in a kneejerk masculine and male-centered way in response to an offense whose victim was a woman.

And then there’s the head of Democrats Abroad, a very boomerish, very Democratty boomer Democrat who also deplored the actions of both men, not to mention basically everyone else in the room save Jada, but framed it as “what a shame that the whole debacle had to reflect so poorly on Black culture, in this wonderful new era where Black people are finally getting the representation they deserve on the Oscars stage”. So, still a major contrast in tone from the others.

My own views? I mostly agree with the last person I mentioned (although I definitely wouldn’t frame it as “look at how bad this makes black people look!” nor the other extreme of “being white, I have to put a million qualifiers before venturing to have a judgmental opinion of things two particular black people did”). There are no winners in this story, except possibly Jada. I would think Chris Rock’s joke was maybe okay if (as I initially assumed from ignorance) Jada’s hairstyle was entirely based on her own preferences rather than a disease that she has publicly struggled with. As it is, Rock’s joke was absolutely out of line. But it is very much not okay nor a proportionate response to march on stage and strike someone for that, especially if on behalf of someone else who might well experience the incident and its aftermath as a far worse and less forgettable ordeal because of it (qualifier: Will Smith obviously knows his wife much better than I do).

(Also, I think it’s been slightly under-recognized that Smith seemed to appreciate the joke while it was being told. To be fair, there are a couple of theories which explain this as reasonable, such as him being initially unfamiliar with G.I. Jane, or just that he was warmed up and primed to laugh before fully processing what he was hearing.)

How do I feel about Jada? I think she obviously had good reason and every right to be angry both at Chris Rock and at Will Smith. Do I think anger / humiliation / deep hurt is the ideal response to a joke like Rock’s? No, it is often possible, and probably healthier, to have a sense of humor even about very difficult things in your own life and to assume the best in other people who make light of them (in this case, to assume that Rock didn’t do it with malice). I’ve known people who are wonderful at this, and I imagine it gives them strength. For instance, I had a friend in graduate school who, at barely 22 years old, had to drop out of the program due to a series of severe illnesses which included an ischemic attack and the onset of a permanent disease that made her spastic and wheelchair-bound (a couple of years later, I’m happy to say that she was out of the wheelchair, mostly had control of her muscle movements, and was physically active). At a party that took place while her symptoms were most severe, one of our friends asked soon after she arrived, “Is it okay for me to laugh about this?” to which she immediately responded, “Yes!”, and throughout the rest of the party he continually made good-natured and very non-cruel jokes about her condition which she seemed to genuinely appreciate. (Qualifier: he was a trusted friend, and I suppose Chris Rock wasn’t.)

But, even if Jada were obligated not to react with deep hurt or taking offense – which she absolutely isn’t! – I’m not even sure that was quite her reaction. Her facial expression seemed to me rather eye-rolly and cringing and Not Amused, but indicated someone who might very well be able and satisfied not to let it bother her and who would prefer just to move on, and who would definitely not appreciate her husband turning it into a major national spectacle. I don’t know Jada, and I don’t know everything behind the dynamics between these three individuals or how they really felt about things; this is all just my analysis based on what I saw and my feelings about how humans interact.