Nordok

@cesc_bo_vera:

Is it though? Comedians dont research family medical histories or even 'ask permission' or 'check ahead' to make sure a joke is pc or agreeable. Thats kinda the opposite of comedy.

It's true that they don't, and perhaps it's not fair to expect them to, but...that's just the reality of the world we live in today, for good or ill.

Plus thats a false equivalency. One joke is dealing with actual death. A catastrophic disaster that cost lives. The other was a 4th grade level bald joke.

Yes, those jokes were on two entirely different levels, but I still stand by my point: standards like harshness can be very subjective. That joke might not seem like anything significant to you or me, but it also wasn't about you or me, it was about someone who was sitting right in the audience and didn't even have the opportunity to process it in privacy before her reaction was broadcast to a global audience.

Jada Smith aint about to show up at the Oscars, suddenly bald, and the comedian host isnt going to point it out? We all jus gonna pretend this aint a visual alteration to what we knew before?

I mean...yeah, we could have gone that route. People change their looks all the time, for whatever reason. Heck, the joke itself is kind of ridiculously dated; GI Jane isn't exactly a recent film. It's not like he couldn't have just cracked jokes about some of the wild outfits celebrities wear to that event and then have a joke that was not only less likely to backfire, but was also actually relevant.

What if he had said she was gonna be in Black Panther 2 instead of GI Jane?

The GI Jane joke only "worked" because everyone made a big deal over Demi shaving her head for the role; Chadwick didn't do that, so that wouldn't have made any sense, unless he was making a joke about Jada wearing a CGI dress to the Oscars.

And again, I'm not arguing that Chris deserved to get slapped. I'm sure there's not a person here who hasn't told an ill-considered joke at one point or another, and when telling jokes is your trade, it's all but inevitable. I'm just saying that I can understand why, under the circumstances, Jada and Will were upset by it, and also Chris, as a longtime professional comedian, should have known that making a joke about circumstances when you might not know the full story carried the risk of backlash.

Yeah, Chris might not have known, but that part's kind of on him. Besides being an experienced comedian, he's also part of the Hollywood scene, and if some nobody rando like me can find out that information, there's no reason he couldn't have checked ahead of time. And yeah, the joke might not have been objectively harsh, but...let me put it this way: Colin Jost once made a joke about the cremated remains being carried into orbit by a SpaceX rocket not being cremated prior to launch, but he didn't say it to an audience that included surviving relatives of the Challenger disaster.

But yeah, regardless of how anyone feels about the joke, Will's reaction to it was disproportionate and not appropriate. What's done is done; I just hope that the fact that everyone is talking about this inspires us all to take a step back and be more thoughtful when it comes to words and actions.

[Just quoting the parts that are relevant to me].

I would be with you on the first part if it wasn't for the medical angle. To me at least, that crosses the line where "it's just a joke" no longer flies with me. Again, Chris Rock's been in the comedy game long enough that he has to know how this works, so I'd have very little sympathy for him catching some flak over this.

I am 100% with you on the second part, though. There's any number of other things Will Smith could have done before putting his hands on another person. He could have made a show of getting up and storming out, or heck, if he felt the need to address it then and there he could have gone up on stage and given Chris a piece of his mind in front of all the people in that theater and the maybe dozens watching at home. Chris Rock crossed a line, but Will Smith crossed a bigger one.

You're not wrong, but the next incident might be more than that. I'd just much rather that the consensus be "yeah, that's not okay" now than wait until someone gets their jaw broken or worse.

Chris Rock's joke was entirely lacking in taste and tact, and was inappropriate. Regardless of how anyone feels about Jada as a person or making fun of someone's appearance in general, the particular facet of her appearance that Chris was poking at is the result of a medical condition (to the best of my knowledge), not a personal choice on her part. A comedian as experienced as he is should have known that it would be incredibly controversial and divisive to joke about something like that.

That being said, as a general rule I am very much against escalating a verbal dispute to a physical one, regardless of how hurtful the words spoken may have been. That's going into incredibly dangerous territory, especially in such a public arena and when you have the level of social influence that comes with celebrity status. Someone being physically assaulted because someone else was upset by something they said is NOT something we should be comfortable with, as a society, regardless of how offensive the words were or how seemingly "minor" the assault was.

Just my two cents.

The RPG section is for engaging in ComicVine-specific RPGing; moving this thread to General Discussion.

If you want to make a claim, you need to do so in accordance with the empire rules, please:

RIP William Hurt.

This really isn't what the RPG forum is for. Moving your thread to General Discussion.

Moving your thread to general discussion; this isn't what the RPG section is for.

Hi there.

This isn't what the RPG forum is about; it is for engaging in actual roleplaying activities, not discussing existing RPG settings.

Moving your thread to General Discussion.