Originally published at: Tony Rock responds to Will Smith smacking his brother Chris | Boing Boing
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When family sticks together, just beautiful.
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What kind of society is driven to laugh at this stuff? There was nothing funny about Chris Rock’s joke, and nothing funny about Will’s response. Turning it into a standup routine, as Tony Rock tries to do here is just sad, especially when he dresses it in misogynist language.
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The crowd in this video was primed to laugh as it was supposed to be (I think) a comedy show. But Tony wasn’t making any jokes, but rather expressing his emotions about what happened to his brother.
My familia the other day was wondering what woulda happened if ol’ Willie woulda hopped up on stage and smacked the other Rock, ie, Dwayne. My take is that Willie would never have gotten outta his chair that night.
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Are you suggesting the phrase “because his b**** gave him the side-eye” is not intended to be a joke?
There’s this notion among the stand-up comedy set that nothing should be off-limits for their humour. But that’s clearly not true, as there are topics they consistently avoid (e.g. the Holocaust). So the fact that they fight so hard to defend their right to use sexist and ableist jokes says a lot about the culture.
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Are you suggesting the phrase “because his b**** gave him the side-eye” is not intended to be a joke?
Doesn’t really sound like a setup or a punchline to me (which jokes generally require), I agree with RobJ he was just expressing how he feels. The laughter coming from the hundreds of people in the crowd is from the ridiculousness of the scenario he’s describing. Jokes aren’t the only things in the universe that can elicit laughter.
There’s this notion among the stand-up comedy set that nothing should be off-limits for their humour. But that’s clearly not true, as there are topics they consistently avoid (e.g. the Holocaust).
Comedians also consistently avoid jokes about the composition of the Earth’s mantle or how the treasury department operates, but I doubt it’s because those are “off limits”.
So the fact that they fight so hard to defend their right to use sexist and ableist jokes says a lot about the culture.
You seem to be steeped in this topic since you know about “the culture” of stand up comedy. Could you post some examples of sexist and ableist material that you feel is indefensible yet allowed a pass for whatever reason? I’m not entirely convinced the world is as you describe.
Strawmen, eh? Let’s not do that.
I already gave you two examples (hint: one from each of the Rock brothers). If you can’t see them, that’s on you.
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Strawmen, eh? Let’s not do that.
And mentioning the Holocaust isn’t?
Let’s not yet you already did.
I’ll give you “the b word” is certainly misogynistic language, unnecessary and maybe even a hindrance to what he is saying. I’ll let Tony Rock die on that hill if he wishes.
Anyway, clearly there is no routine here, just a comedian pointing at the elephant in the room so he can get on with his show, we see the intro two times, and it clearly ends with him moving on.
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His act is a explanation of why Tony Rock is “an unknown entity.”
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Huh. I did not even know Chris Rock had a brother in comedy, too. TIL. Well, note to self: track down some longer video of a set - this seemed to be more a commentary meant as a bit of something “meta” before heading into an actual set…even if there seemed to be a bit of nervous laughter during some of it.
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