Bill Maher’s TMZ interview about the Will Smith-Chris Rock thing is worth it for the Jackie Kennedy analogy. 48 hours after her husband’s head exploded during a Dallas motorcade, the former First Lady showed class and grace during the funeral observances. 1.5 seconds after he was slapped upside the head by Will Smith, Chris Rock showed class and grace by keeping his cool and basically saying “okay, that happened, amazing television, let’s move on.”
For what it’s worth, I never had a grade-school teacher who shared anything about his or her personal life (sexual orientation, who they were married to or were living with, where they went camping the previous weekend)…nothing. It seems to me that this Florida teacher wants his students to know that he’s gay and has a partner in order to (a) bring them into his world and thereby (b) normalize gay lifestyles and coupledom so as to discourage any homophobic thoughts that might arise down the road.
HE to Florida teacher: Try sticking to the cirriculum and keeping your private life in a private box. If a student asks what a “partner” is, say a close friend and let it go at that. Or say “ask your parents.”
Teacher on MSNBC worries he can't discuss his love life with kindergarteners anymore: "It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children…I don’t want to have to hide that my partner and I went paddle boarding this weekend." pic.twitter.com/YJperIlzJB
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 29, 2022
HE to readership: In his remarks this morning to CBS Mornings‘ Gayle King, Jim Carrey said that Chris Rock should sue Will Smith for $200 million because “that insult is going to last forever…it’s going to be ubiquitous.”
If you were Rock, would you sue? You know he’d have an excellent case in civil court. He’d definitely be able to hurt Smith in a nine-figure way, or at least an eight-figure one.
Carrey: “[The slapping incident] cast a pall over everybody’s shining moment last night. A lot of people worked very hard to get to that place, and to have their moment in the sun…it is no mean fear with all the stuff you have to go through when you’re nominated for an Oscar…it’s a gauntlet of devotion that you have to do…and [what happened] was just a selfish moment that cast a pall over the whole thing.”
Russia’s deputy defense minister says Moscow has decided to “fundamentally cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernigiv” in order to “increase mutual trust for future negotiations to agree and sign a peace deal with Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/2qDYOzAzDp
— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 29, 2022
The other 41 are standing firm behind Chris Rock.
From Judy Kurtz-authored The Hill story, posted this afternoon: “Maine rallied the most around Rock, with a whopping 98.2 percent of tweets tallied from the state cheering on the comic.”
I guess I’m sorta kinda wondering why Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, John Wayne, James Cagney…why did we never hear about these guys occasionally bitch-slapping each other during the Oscar ceremonies of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s?
Probably because their testosterone levels were too low, I’m guessing. They resultantly lacked sufficient manliness — unlike Will Smith, they simply didn’t have the nerve to occasionally throw down and “straighten” each other out.
I first noticed Ted Knight’s wordless cameo in Psycho maybe…40 years ago? He played State Trooper guarding the windowless room that Norman Bates was being held in.
I know, I know…”who’s Ted Knight”?
According to a 3.28 New Yorker interview, Robert Eggers‘ The Northman is in some kind of compromised state. It’s a complex tale, but just read Sam Knight’s article and try to piece it together in your head.
Here’s the short Jordan Ruimy version of what seems to be going on.
Key quote: “Eggers [has] described the editing process as the most painful experience of his life. ‘Frankly, I don’t think I will do it again,’ he said. ‘Even if it means, like, not making a film this big ever again. And, by the way, I’d like to make a film this big. I’d like to make one even bigger. But, without control, I don’t know. It’s too hard on my person.'”
Robert Eggers on #TheNorthman test screenings: “Some audience member wrote, ‘You need to have a master’s degree in Viking history to understand, like, anything in this movie.’ Like, ahhh, fuck.”
(https://t.co/qxcC8KhiiL) pic.twitter.com/mIbFq4imcj
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) March 28, 2022
HE vs. Daily Beast‘s Marlow Stern, two or three hours ago:
fwiw this oscar moment was way more disgraceful than the slap pic.twitter.com/Lisvr9Vwe2
— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) March 28, 2022
I think we all appreciate this kind of slack and consideration. We could all do better and I, for one, want and intend to.
…if the house-sized Jason Momoa or Dwayne Johnson had been presenting the Best Feature Documentary Oscar. Will Smith would have just sat there and smirked and shrugged it off if one of these two guys had made a GI Jane 2 joke. Because as big as Smith is, these guys are bigger and stronger and he wouldn’t have wanted to flirt with getting stomped. But he knew he could slap Chris Rock and walk away unscathed, and so he did.
This was an observation shared by Howard Stern this morning…Stern’s thought, not mine. And an accurate one.
