Netflix takes the low road, using demagoguery as self-defense.
Who exactly is Chris Rock’s constituency? The comedian’s recent Selective Outrage stand-up comedy show for Netflix has excited political pundits who cheer Rock for his jokes about wokeness and because, as Whoopi Goldberg put it, “he doesn’t pull punches, he just says what he thinks and takes the consequences.” This one-sided approval glosses over Rock’s social positions and ethics yet praises his attack. The distinction is important because it illustrates the fractious nature of contemporary discourse.
Rock’s moral stances have always been unclear, wavering even during the course of his new routine until he brought up the subject of Will Smith and the Oscar-night slap that happened one year ago. The incident has loomed over the two celebrities’ careers, with Rock honing a public response throughout his Ego Death comedy tour in 2022. Making The Slap the climax of Selective Outrage satiated media agitators. The New York Times called it “long awaited,” and Whoopi Goldberg’s tribute exposed the jackal industry’s lust for extended battle.
This display of blatant hypocrisy and taking sides aligns with recent political trends in which twisted language and arch, disingenuous public behavior is regularly promoted by corporate media — and that’s Rock’s primary constituency.
Shrewdly titling his live-streamed punch-back Selective Outrage, Rock referenced the infamous slap, stating, “Will Smith practices selective outrage.” Rather than reexamining his own involvement in that shocking episode, or analyzing the motives behind provoking his opponent’s strike, Rock practiced performative outrage.
“I’m not a victim, baby! You’ll never see me on Oprah [Winfrey] or Gayle [King] crying,” he boasted. Instead, he fulfills a $40 million contract with Netflix by dredging up gossip and allegations about Smith’s marriage to Jada Pinkett-Smith (“modern” matrimony in the age of “conscious uncoupling” and vagina-scented candles). Rock impugned the actor’s manhood with a tirade based on six stressed repetitions of the emasculating epithet “bitch.” (The audience at the Hippodrome Theater in Covid-racked Baltimore — selected for being Jada Pinkett’s hometown — roared at each strained utterance.)
It’s worth noting the duplicity behind Rock’s self-defense (“his truth,” one pundit said) for its similarity to politicians’ rhetoric that plays upon public sentiment for the sake of self-glorification. Remember, Rock built his career on race humor, first recognizable to his original core black audience and then used to titillate white outsiders seeking to satisfy their outrage, envy, and guilt. (It won Rock an undeserved career as an actor and Spielberg-backed film director.)
Rock’s sharp but ambiguous gibes (such as blasting a salacious BET Awards exhibition by remarking, “Wouldn’t Martin Luther King be proud?”) won him dubious status as a social satirist. However, the stand-up stage is shaky ground for race-based humor, especially when encouraged and funded by major institutions. It becomes a platform for demagoguery — racial exploitation no different from how Biden constantly refers to America’s racist past as if to revive it. Rock similarly slips into deep-seated anger and profanity, blurting, “Everybody’s full of s***.”
Rock’s slap-back at Smith revives the insecurity and evident immaturity that characterized their altercation. (Both men misbehaved.) Selective Outrage provides no helpful insight into the temperamental differences that erupted at last year’s Oscars. In omitting Smith’s powerful colloquial declaration (“Keep my wife’s name out your f***ing mouth!”), Rock’s revenge-monologue ignores the complexities of hip-hop-era black male pride. (The rap group Geto Boys offer a fascinating glimpse into this very issue on their recent podcast when Willie D and Scarface hashed out personal hurts regarding the recent Grammy Awards: two great artists being combative yet staying civil, brotherly.)
The media constituency that endorses Rock pretends to be principled despite its irresponsible — and selective — social messages. Several articles cited Rock’s jokes about Meghan Markle, but I couldn’t find any that transcribed his blasphemous condemnation of the Kardashian sisters’ sex lives. Rock carefully chooses targets that already receive corporate disdain — from O.J. Simpson to Michael Jackson and R. Kelly. Wokeness exemplified.
Feeling humiliated, Rock plays a dangerous race game, calling on his media peers Charlamagne Tha God, The Talk, and The View to make relations worse. In a poor imitation of Dave Chappelle’s audacity, Rock ended his set with a defense that should not be confused with civility: “Why didn’t I fight back? ’Cause I got parents. ’Cause I was raised. And you know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of white people.”
Through that bogus bromide, not genuine black folklore, class privilege raised its self-righteous head. Rock’s mic-drop moment childishly plays “the dozens,” bashing the failures of ghetto culture without addressing the crisis outright. Two celebrities’ respective teams should have arranged a rapprochement. It didn’t have to be real. Instead, our national pathology continues.
Selective Outrage is merely the humor of a political court jester serving as a mouthpiece for the media’s status quo. This cowardly racism is still fighting in front of white people.