Chris Rock: Selective Outrage ~ The Jester’s Privilege
Look, I don’t have to explain to you who Chris Rock is, what he’s done, or how he became famous. He’s one of the most famous active comedians in the world, and has been for quite some time. This fact isn’t lost on the producers of “Selective Outrage,” his new special either. With clips of past jokes montaged in the intro and plenty of recurring themes of Rock’s comedy, the people of Baltimore and the people that watched live knew who they came to see. And you knew who you came to read about. And I knew who I came to watch. Nonetheless, for some reason, I allowed my expectations to be too high.
Unlike most specials featuring comics who are up there in age, Rock has been a relevant figure over this past year, or more accurately, about a year ago on the dot. One day, you’re telling jokes onstage at the Oscars, the next, you’re a martyr of free speech and why comedians need to be protected. The slap heard around the world skyrocketed Rock’s public image, and a little less than a year later, people are packing theatres to hear him talk about the slap. But we will get to that.
Because his main point throughout the show wasn’t that, it was what the title says: “Selective Outrage”. It is the hypocrisy in society to get angry in one situation, and turn a blind eye in others. This culminates in some expected schools of thought: if men and women were flip-flopped in certain situations, corporations getting into the philanthropy game, people false claiming racism in certain areas. With Rock’s pedigree, none of it seemed disingenuous or inauthentic, but there also was nothing particularly fresh or interesting about his observations.
He didn’t talk about Will Smith at all until the very end. Hell, he went after Meghan Markle for longer than he went after Smith, and all Markle did was talk to Oprah. After an hour of waiting for some good zingers for the Fresh Prince, as it turns out, he didn’t really have much for that situation either. Sure, he got some good licks in, but it really seemed like his target was the catalyst of the whole situation: Jada Pickett-Smith. Never mentioning her by name, he drags her and her entanglements through the goddamn mud. Most of it wasn’t funny. It was pretty brutal.
Then it was time for the big point to be brought home, because Rock claims the reason he got slapped is because he could. Mind you, the bizarre Jada Pickett-Smith cheating on Will Smith round table discussion happened a year and a half before the Oscars, and the joke Rock told wasn’t even about August Alsina. But according to Rock, Will Smith snapped from everyone calling him a bitch (Rock’s words, not mine), and he took it out on him because he was smaller and wouldn’t fight back, stating that he “never hit 50 [Cent] when he called [Smith] a bitch.” Rock was flabbergasted at the hypocrisy, the selective outrage of Smith. I have no idea the true reason behind the slap, but if it was what Rock said it was, I might agree.
Regardless of the truth, that whole section brought me back to another thing he said in the beginning. He mocked an age-old saying, as a larger mocking of safe spaces and people being triggered: words hurt. He doesn’t like that phrase, thinks it’s too soft. It’s a bit of a throwaway bit, but it’s an interesting tone to set when you end the special with an incident that got many comedians clutching their pearls about whether or not it’s safe anymore to do comedy. Apparently Will Smith set a terrifying standard of assaulting comics, but when comics use their platform to use hateful rhetoric, rhetoric proven to contribute to violence against marginalized groups, words don’t hurt, I guess. I don’t know, seems a bit selective to me.
Chris Rock took his spike in fame and turned it into just another subpar special, with a side of hypocrisy at a very meta level. We all knew he could’ve done better. I don’t know why I expected better. But at the very least, I expected to not have such an easy time poking holes in his arbitrary theme of being selective of what you are mad at. For as much time as he spends convincing the world that he is a profound orator, it’s less convincing when you are prone to the very thing you criticize.
At the end of the day, what did we expect? Obviously too much.
3/10
If you would like to hear more thoughts on this special from a person infinitely more talented and insightful than me, here’s Roxane Gay.
