More on Chris Rock

 

A couple more thoughts about Chris Rock's performance in Selective Outrage, streamed lived on Saturday:

As most people who care already know, Rock ended the show with a righteously indignant counter-punch to Will Smith's legendary Oscar slap. Rock punctuated his own outrage at being tagged by a much bigger guy during a global broadcast by saying the worst thing about that pitiful scene was it broke one of Black mothers' cardinal rules -- "Don't fight in front of white people."

I am confident I was not the only viewer who nodded with deep understanding at that mic drop. "Yes," I thought. "That's right." I don't know the origins of that rule but it most likely relates to racial uplift and the belief that open divisiveness weakens everyone.

Ironically, Rock has made millions picking fights with other, mostly faceless, Black folks -- those who ruin things for others. Druggies and pole dancers. Wasters and whiners. His profligate use of the n-word -- in both bold and nuanced renderings -- might be read as contradictory to the unity rule.

But, Rock is who he is. He is, justifiably, proud of his accomplishments. Aside from his highly successful stage and acting career, he's shepherded many successful, race-positive ventures as a producer. He is still a Hollywood A-lister. And, except for the endless profanity in his bits and on his recordings, and the absence of a past of sexual predation, one might compare him to Bill Cosby.

Rock also appears to be traumatized. His material in Selective Outrage is not as smooth and richly crafted, resonant, as it has been in the past. (He has written some brilliant stuff.) And that night, as he repeatedly cast his eyes to upper reaches of the auditorium, he seemed to be particularly attentive to someone in the royal box. Spike Lee?

He strutted and crowed about his money and fame, the distance between his mother's home of Georgetown, South Carolina, and Paris, where his oldest daughter is attending culinary school.

It appeared Selective Outrage was his moment to show he was not the "bitch" Smith thought to make him that night a year ago.

For the most part, he succeeded.