Title Fight: Rock vs Smith

 I haven't done a blog in A G E S cos I prefer to vent my spleen at humanity over on Twitter (@HeggieFVK again - my boys are back!!! ;; ) but this one is a gnarly situation...

The Cast
Chris Rock (b. 1965), a 'comedian' of dubious humour
Will Smith (b. 1968), an actor
Jada Pinkett Smith (b. 1971), Will's wife / an actress

The Plot
Rock is presenting the Oscar for best documentary (going to Questlove for 'Summer Of Soul') at the 2022 Academy Awards. Smith is up for (and eventually wins) best actor (King Richard - which it turns out is about tennis and not Shakespeare). But before that can happen Rock goes off script and makes a 'joke' about Pinkett Smith and G.I. Jane 2.

The Event
Smith strides up to the stage and slaps Rock across the face (a lot of reports and comments say it was a punch, depending on exactly what you think you see in the footage, personally I'm not interested in trying to analyse it although I will say that I thought it looked FAKE) before returning to his seat.

The Fall Out
Naturally enough the morning after the night before it's practically the only thing the interwebs are talking about. There are a whole bunch of takes that I'll tackle in no particular order.

1) Violence Is Always Wrong
I don't think there's any disagreement that Smith was at fault. It was an unacceptable reaction. However the calls from certain people (mostly, from what I've seen, outraged white men) for Smith to be stripped of his well-deserved Oscar is also an unacceptable reaction. Sure, Smith may have lowered the tone but Rock used a joke that was not pre-vetted and consequences were had. I feel it is worth noting that Smith apologised to the Academy for his actions... but not to Rock.

2) It was a G.I. Jane joke
This was Rock's response although TBH I'm not clear what he could have meant by that. My INITIAL response was that he was making a rude comment about Pinkett Smith's career. G.I. Jane (1997 movie starring Demi Moore in the title role) was a rubbish film - Moore got a Worst Actress Razzie and it made a loss at the box office Meanwhile Pinkett Smith's movies include a number of sequels, remakes, cameos, voice roles, etc. It's not an exaggeration to say she's most famous for being Mrs Will Smith.

3) Ableism
The G.I. Jane character is most famous for being BALD. Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease. Smith, and a large proportion of the internet denizens putting in their tuppenceworth (myself included) that 'making fun' of people's illnesses, disabilities, visible differences and so forth is entirely unacceptable.
If a 'joke' of that sort was made in a classroom or playground it would be classed as bullying; if it was in a work environment it'd be 'creating a toxic working environment'. The context of an awards ceremony does not make it okay.

4) Political Correctness Will Kill Comedy
First off, Chris Rock isn't remotely funny. Secondly this was not a skit in which fun was made of bald people or bald women, it was a specific comment directed at a specific woman. That's not 'political correctness gone mad', it's being 'anti-bullying'. I dislike the whole 'roasting' thing anyway but certain topics SHOULD be off limits, especially when aimed at individuals.
Since my mum's incapacitation my tolerance for stroke jokes has become non-existent but try to be funny at her expense and I'll show you an alternative meaning of the word 'punchline'.

5) The "maybe Chris Rock didn't know about the alopecia, I didn't" argument
This one is REALLY hard to swallow. Unless Rock had been living under a rock it's really damned unlikely. I don't follow celebrity shit beyond what pootles past my nose when scrolling Twitter but I've known about her alopecia for ages (she was diagnosed in 2018). It's had a lot of publicity.

6) It was just a joke
Okay, so this isn't REALLY a point here but following on from the maybe-he-didn't-know idea... In 2009 Chris Rock PRODUCED AND NARRATED a documentary called Good Hair, on the subject of the importance, social acceptance, and desirability of black American women's hair.
There is literally NO WAY IN HELL he didn't understand that a woman like Jada would hold their hair as an integral part of their identity and grieve its loss. Even if a woman has chosen to shave her head joking about people's appearances is never a good move.

7) Smith is henpecked / cuckolded / at his wife's mercy yada yada yada
Obviously, I don't know these people but I've seen bits and pieces over the twenty four years of their marriage. Whether she has cheated on him or whether they have an open marriage is entirely their business. Personally I dislike the dynamic they have as a couple but if it works for them it has nothing to do with anybody else.
The idea that Will hit Chris because 'Jada made him do it' is not outside the realms of possibility but I dislike the inherent sexism. When a woman is seen to be 'controlled by her husband she is an object of pity; when the reverse seems to be the case he is seen as pathetic, an object of ridicule.
IMHO it looked like Will was laughing uncomfortably at Rock's joke (knowing full well he was on camera, being seen by the world) and then caught the expression of hurt on Jada's face. Knowing that she'd just been insulted before an audience of over fifteen million at the most prestigious awards ceremony in the cinematic world must simply have been too much.
I also want to note here that in a long and prestigious career this is the VERY FIRST TIME I have seen Will Smith's name linked to any kind of questionable behaviour, let alone violence.
Rock however had insulted Jada at the 2016 Oscars too, making fun of her non-appearance as she hadn't been invited to attend. He's been in hot water for other controversial jokes and has not exactly led a squeaky-clean life. People in glass houses and all that...

My Review: Three Stars (wink-wink, get it???)
Violence is a pretty poor response but I can understand it. I have been bullied and I abhor trying to pass off hurtful behaviour as comedy or banter. Everyone sucks here, but Rock somewhat more than Smith.

On Perspective

Today I got a bit of grief for not understanding a joke.
It goes like this:

So the main thing is that I have never heard this myth that people having olfactory hallucinations during strokes smell burned toast.
It really helps if you've heard the story the joke is dependent on. But I still don't find it 'funny' unless you factor in that burned toast in the ocean is just soggy bread. And that's not exactly hilarious either.

Perspective is a huge thing too and strokes aren't especially funny. Illnesses, diseases, medical conditions in general...problematic. It's one thing to watch a disabled person make jokes about their own condition - people are allowed to poke fun at themselves, it's when people poke fun at others it starts to get difficult.

So, having seen this do the I retweeted it with the following: 

I've seen this one do the rounds several times and it's no good

I have to ask... WHY IS IT (allegedly) FUNNY?

Probably just me being *sensitive*

but I don't find anything about strokes funny.

The @thelifeofsharks twitter account retweeted me with the (partial) comment: 

We’re sorry you don’t understand the joke.

We’re not for everyone.

Wow, 'I'm sorry you don't get the joke' is such a non-explanation for why you're 'joking' about a very serious issue. 
Another tweeter replied: 

i found it funny, and ive had strokes before. it's set up well,

and uses the toast thing effectively to make a joke

that even i can laugh at

Look, I'm happy for you. I don't know what kind of strokes you had or why but I see from your bio that you're pretty young - maybe that has enabled you to make a good recovery or maybe you're just in a really good headspace to accept what happened to you because, again, perspective is a pretty important factor.

This, for example, is MY perspective.
When I was 6 years old my grandad had a stroke*. They didn't have MRIs or whatever in those days and there's no good way of defining different severities of stroke anyway. He lived another 16 years pretty much in one room like a prisoner in his own home. He had a poor quality of life; he died in 2000 aged 91 - of complications from the catheter he'd had to use because of the stroke.
His wife died less than 3 months later, also of stroke, but then she was 95.
Their youngest daughter, my mother, worked her ass of all those years to keep them in their own home - doing all their groceries & laundry, doing the middle-of-the-night call outs when he fell. My dad did all their gardening and DIY.
My mum had her stroke* on 16th April 2018 aged 73. She has been affected far worse than her father was - he could stay in his own home with assistance, meals on wheels, carers in twice a day... My mum has to have someone with her 24/7 which is me (with a little help from my daughters & dad - when they're available).
See, this doesn't just wreck the life of the person it happens to. I had to give up my own life, my hopes & dreams to care her. And if that sounds callous I don't much care - I did not have a happy childhood and I never had a great relationship with either of my parents. I hadn't long graduated, my youngest kid was recently off to uni - I was finally gonna get my life back. Unfortunately, for both of us, I'm an only child and my mum's partner wasn't up to the job. So now I'm stuck at home being a domestic drudge on zero income living my worst nightmare. The things I have seen and done in the past year and a half...
*We're fairly sure both had subsequent strokes (I think they were confirmed at autopsy in my grandfather's case; my mother is terrified of all things medical so we've pretty much nursed her through the 'episodes')

So yeah, I'm glad that the stroke-survivor who responded that they found it funny is in a position to do so. But that's far from true for all. For many people the position is utterly devastating. You won't find my mum laughing about her funny incontinence or the fact she chokes when she eats or drinks or the million other shitty things she has to endure every damn day. I'm not laughing either, I cry myself to sleep most nights wondering what I did to deserve this karma.

Brain damage* is horrific however it happens but somehow I think it must be a little easier to accept if there's a terrible accident or something. The thing with a stroke is that there's not an outside cause, your body can just do it to itself. My mum was watching TV for heaven's sake! If she hadn't has a partner to phone and raise the alarm...well, she'd have ended up like Michael.
Michael lived down the road from us. Back in the spring his neighbour called his ex wife (my godmother) because she was concerned...he'd been dead a considerable time. I hope to God he dropped dead of a heart attack or something but he could've had a stroke and just lain there 'til he died of dehydration. Maybe there was a reason no one cared about him in life but it's a horrible way to imagine someone going.
*Only in the past couple of weeks did I become aware that there's also such a thing as a spinal stroke - so you can end up permanently and completely paralysed for no damn reason.

I'm certainly not gonna say I speak for any stroke survivor when I'm not one myself; I'm not even gonna claim to speak for any other person whose life has been affected by stroke. Maybe I am being an over sensitive snowflake but this is my reality.
For some people a stroke is little more than a TIA - a 24 hour scare. Some have more serious experiences that require a longer recovery time. Some people will never fully recover; some don't even get a partial recovery but remain seriously impaired as long as they live. Some will die. And they're all called stroke, regardless of whether you can live a fairly normal life, go back to work etc...or whether you're left catastrophically disabled. Lumping all stroke-survivors (and their loved-ones) into one category like that is just nuts when it's a ridiculously diverse set of circumstances.

• Dead within 28 days of stroke - 28%
• Dead within one year of stroke - 41%
• Dead within five years of stroke - 60%

Source: https://www.saebo.com/stroke-statistics/

• Around 2% of the UK population is a stroke survivor.
• Stroke is the UK's 4th biggest killer (1 person every 13 minutes) and the leading cause of acquired disability.
• 1 in 8 deaths worldwide is caused by stroke.

Source: https://www.stroke.org.uk/sites/default/files/state_of_the_nation_2017_final_1.pdf

I find the statistics pretty hard reading though:
About half get a brain scan WITHIN AN HOUR of arriving in hospital, almost 9 out of 10 patients have a brain scan within 12 hours. At 18 hours in they were still insisting it couldn't possibly be a stroke and finally agreed to do a scan 'just in case'.
In Scotland 8 out of 10 people are admitted to a stroke unit within 24 hours. We're in England, my mum waited a week for a bed to become available.
And then the shit about therapies and rehabilitation - everything stopped dead as soon as she was discharged. No physio, no speech therapy, nothing.

So yeah, forgive me if I don't find it funny.