Are you not not going to watch the Oscars this year?

[bada]

Tom Cruise is like that dude has issues.

[Anders]

[Peeps]

[warehouse]

I know next to nothing about Will Smith otherwise, and don't make any claims about his character outside of slapping Chris Rock

I love Will Smith, but he's got some loose screws.

he can't afford to have them tightened? he rich!

[Jorge]

One can only assume that he's getting them tightened with Scientology auditing sessions

[Mickey]

Reading Will Smith smacking Chris Rock as "resistance" is exactly the sort of pigeon-brain take you end up with when you discount how much money someone makes.

why? there are many issues here about power dynamics beyond rich and poor; I don't stop caring about ableism when a target has money

Because you have abstracted from the material context in order to find an object lesson for your particular interests, one which is not reflected in the situation as a whole in any meaningful way.

"as a whole"?

maybe you need to explain the "whole" situation as my response is coming from a clearly partial faulty extrapolation of the meaning of a joke; I'm clearly biased

Sure, it's pretty easy if we do a little thought experiment. Imagine Chris Rock's joke was not about Jada's medical condition (as you correctly have argued), but was rather about the longstanding rumors that she sleeps around. Imagine she still takes offense, Will charges the stage, slaps Chris, yells at him from the seats, and then wins his award and gives his little teary speech that was mostly about "protecting" the actresses on his film. What about this new situation--and particularly how Smith framed it to the crowd--would have to change from what actually happened in order to make it coherent? Absolutely nothing--because this was not "about" disability in any meaningful way. It was about Will Smith, his wife, his relationship to his wife, and his *insane* ego as a lunatic millionaire. Will Smith did not slap Chris Rock for ableism. He slapped him because Rock made a joke about his wife, and Will Smith has imagined himself to be the kind of rich asshole who gets to say "keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth" and "Richard Williams protected his family."

you have no more evidence for your feelings than I do, but I hope you enjoyed typing your thought experiment out; you're essentially asking me "if we can reasonably reduce your claims to complexity down to my claims to simplicity, then wash our hands and be done with it, shouldn't we?", and I'm arguing no, we shouldn't

your argument is "Will Smith is a rich egomaniac and that's where it starts and stops"; and that's fine, but I vehemently disagree

That is not what I am "essentially asking" at all, but you're free to think that ableism has been resisted because this one rich asshole acted like a maniac on TV, if that's what makes you happy.

I laughed, so yes it made me happy for the few seconds it lasted

and yes, I do think that somebody high profile learned that ableist jokes can have a consequence -- it's small, but not insignificant that that happened in the public eye; I know next to nothing about Will Smith otherwise, and don't make any claims about his character outside of slapping Chris Rock (I do know that he and Jada are polyamorous, and so am I, so that's nice)

Did you watch his acceptance speech?

I'm going to now

How dare you imply that I don't understand the whole context of the event. No I haven't watched Will Smith's acceptance speech from 30 minutes after the slap, where he discusses the slap.

[Jorge]

Reports coming out that Chris Rock didn't know about Jada's alopecia, lol

[Mickey]

It's not the job of the oppressed to educate their oppressor

[Ms Harmless]

I found the acceptance speech unedited after some digging

I don't share Will's Christian faith, so don't go in for his "God has chosen me" framing, but I think in essence it was an excellent speech

his use of the word "protected" might strike some people as weird, but I just think it was about the fact that he considers it an honour that as actor and director, he was given the responsibility for a short time to have some talented Black women in his care as colleagues; I think that's a nice thing to say, it's given more significance because the story they were telling was (in part) one of marginalisation, and for the amount of time they were working on the film, they were a microcosm of a marginalised community

the sentiment is the opposite of directors who have groped and sexually assaulted (and worse) actresses under their given authority position as film-makers

Will slapped a guy, and then talked very earnestly about his professional responsibilities, and who he pays dues to; it was good

[Jorge]

[Mickey]

If I didn't know better I'd say this was a bit.

[Ms Harmless]

I'm not going to say "Will is crazy" based on any of the evidence given here, sorry

[tree_]

I'm not going to say "Will is crazy" based on any of the evidence given here, sorry

Would you feel safe if he were in the front row and your job was to make the audience laugh by lightly roasting said audience?

[Jorge]

I'm not going to say "Will is crazy" based on any of the evidence given here, sorry

Apology accepted

[Ms Harmless]

I'm not going to say "Will is crazy" based on any of the evidence given here, sorry

Would you feel comfortable if he were in the front row and your job was to make the audience laugh?

you're asking a disabled trans girl, someone who is the subject of bad comedy constantly; I wouldn't fear being punched because I would go out of my way to not base my comedy around insulting people; it's easier than you think

[tree_]

I'm not going to say "Will is crazy" based on any of the evidence given here, sorry

Would you feel comfortable if he were in the front row and your job was to make the audience laugh?

you're asking a disabled trans girl, someone who is the subject of bad comedy constantly; I wouldn't fear being punched because I would go out of my way to not base my comedy around insulting people; it's easier than you think

Again, pretty sure he was just complimenting how well she was pulling off the short hair... and yet he gets physically assaulted.. so may be harder than you think. Maybe you could just joke about, like, .. well i guess there's nothing left when there's crazy in the room

[Ms Harmless]

Reading Will Smith smacking Chris Rock as "resistance" is exactly the sort of pigeon-brain take you end up with when you discount how much money someone makes.

why? there are many issues here about power dynamics beyond rich and poor; I don't stop caring about ableism when a target has money

Because you have abstracted from the material context in order to find an object lesson for your particular interests, one which is not reflected in the situation as a whole in any meaningful way.

"as a whole"?

maybe you need to explain the "whole" situation as my response is coming from a clearly partial faulty extrapolation of the meaning of a joke; I'm clearly biased

Sure, it's pretty easy if we do a little thought experiment. Imagine Chris Rock's joke was not about Jada's medical condition (as you correctly have argued), but was rather about the longstanding rumors that she sleeps around. Imagine she still takes offense, Will charges the stage, slaps Chris, yells at him from the seats, and then wins his award and gives his little teary speech that was mostly about "protecting" the actresses on his film. What about this new situation--and particularly how Smith framed it to the crowd--would have to change from what actually happened in order to make it coherent? Absolutely nothing--because this was not "about" disability in any meaningful way. It was about Will Smith, his wife, his relationship to his wife, and his *insane* ego as a lunatic millionaire. Will Smith did not slap Chris Rock for ableism. He slapped him because Rock made a joke about his wife, and Will Smith has imagined himself to be the kind of rich asshole who gets to say "keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth" and "Richard Williams protected his family."

you have no more evidence for your feelings than I do, but I hope you enjoyed typing your thought experiment out; you're essentially asking me "if we can reasonably reduce your claims to complexity down to my claims to simplicity, then wash our hands and be done with it, shouldn't we?", and I'm arguing no, we shouldn't

your argument is "Will Smith is a rich egomaniac and that's where it starts and stops"; and that's fine, but I vehemently disagree

That is not what I am "essentially asking" at all, but you're free to think that ableism has been resisted because this one rich asshole acted like a maniac on TV, if that's what makes you happy.

I laughed, so yes it made me happy for the few seconds it lasted

and yes, I do think that somebody high profile learned that ableist jokes can have a consequence -- it's small, but not insignificant that that happened in the public eye; I know next to nothing about Will Smith otherwise, and don't make any claims about his character outside of slapping Chris Rock (I do know that he and Jada are polyamorous, and so am I, so that's nice)

Did you watch his acceptance speech?

I'm going to now

How dare you imply that I don't understand the whole context of the event. No I haven't watched Will Smith's acceptance speech from 30 minutes after the slap, where he discusses the slap.

except that I never brought context into it; I interpreted a joke and a slap based around context I had, and merely claimed that neither your context nor mine lands us on an objectively "true" position; where we land on this is about relative subjectivities, and which ones we trust / which ones we don't

[Mickey]

No, that's not where we land.

[Ms Harmless]

I've seen Will's speech and my position has got stronger, not changed

[Ms Harmless]

No, that's not where we land.

we land on you're right, I'm wrong? whatever you want Mickey