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Chris Rock finally addressed the Oscars slap and made Netflix history on Saturday, with the platform’s first live global streaming event.
Chris Rock has eventually addressed the Oscars gaffe, and on Saturday, he pioneered live global streaming on Netflix.
“I’m going to try to do a show tonight without offending nobody. I’m going to try my best because you never know who might get triggered,” Rock said as he opened his set from Baltimore. “People always say words hurt … anybody who says words hurt has never been punched in the face.”
Rock held off on making jokes about Will Smith slapping him on stage at the Oscars last year after that brief apparent allusion. Instead, he saved them for the final ten minutes of the performance.
“You all know what happened to me, getting smacked by Suge Smith,” Rock said. “It still hurts. I got ‘summertime’ ringing in my ears. But I’m not a victim, baby. You’ll never see me on Oprah or Gayle crying … I took that hit like Pacquiao.”
According to Rock, Smith’s reaction to his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s Oscars joke was more about their relationship than it was about him.
“I love Will Smith, my whole life,” Rock said. “I have rooted for Will Smith my whole life … now I watch ‘Emancipation’ just to see him get whupped.”
Smith plays an enslaved man in the period drama, “Emancipation.”
“‘How come you didn’t do nothing back that night?’” Rock said people have asked him. “Because I got parents. Do you know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of White people.”
The comic covered a wide range of subjects in the first 50 minutes of the special, “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” including addiction, abortion, racism in America, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, the Kardashians, and “wokeness.”
“I have no problem with the wokeness. I have no problem with it at all. I’m all for social justice. I’m all for marginalized people getting their rights. The thing I have a problem with is the selective outrage,” Rock said. “You know what i’m talking about. One person does something, they get canceled. Somebody else does the exact same thing, nothing. You know what I’m talking about … the kind of people who play Michael Jackson songs but won’t play R. Kelly. Same crime, one of them just has better songs.”
Tackling America’s division, Rock said, “America is in horrible shape right now.”
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“We got it worse than Ukraine. Yeah, I said it. Do you know why? Because Ukraine is united and America is clearly divided,” Rock joked. “If the Russians came here right now, half the country would say, ‘Let’s hear them out.’ We’re in a bad place right now.”
Rock also delved into his romantic life, saying when he noticed his pillowcases were dirty, he realized how much women do for men.
“I’m trying to date women my age, which is 10 to 15 years younger than me,” he said. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game. I didn’t get rich and stay in shape to talk about Anita Baker. I’m trying to f— Doja Cat.”
The performance was Rock’s sixth standup special and his second for Netflix after 2018’s “Tamborine,” directed by Bo Burnham.
A pre-show event kicked off with comedian Ronny Chieng live from Los Angeles, where he told the crowd, “We could have pretaped this whole thing and nobody would have cared, but we are doing this for a noble cause: To finally try to kill off traditional TV and put it out of its misery. In fact, if you listen hard you can hear Baby Boomers canceling the last cable subscription packages.”
There was also a post-show special with comedians Arsenio Hall, Dana Carvey, David Spade, Yvonne Orji, and more.
[…] Read: ‘Chris Rock: Selective Outrage’ Outpours Anger At Will Smith 23 […]