Taking all three of the individual people out of the situation, I don’t know a lot about The folks personally and I couldn’t imagine paying enough attention to say things like “ it’s about time somebody..” or “ he’s disgusting and I’ve seen something like this coming four years..”. I have no clue about their real lives everyone involved in this could be fucking monsters and I would have no idea.
When I finish writing this I’m gonna roll over and go to sleep for a couple hours and I expect to wake up and see my social media feed overwrought with the ballad of “Chris and Will ” nobody will be talking about Covid. nobody will be talking about all the shitty stuff going on on the other side of the world right now. And there certainly not going to be talking about Jada Pinkett Smith who if there is a victim here it’s her. That’s not sexy. It’s not good enough for us that a celebrity may have gotten their feelings hurt we can’t wait to see what the ridiculous ramifications are of the slap heard round the world.
Be honest at the end of the day I don’t care about any of this, other than feeling terrible for Miss Smith her medical stuff and what she went through last night , But I decided to take this opportunity to point out a bit of hypocrisy.
As people, and in my experience especially Americans we take equal pleasure in thinking our “celebrities“ are made out of stone in iron but are overjoyed when they are just fancy clothes filled with hair making it so easy to burn them in scathing critical effigy. As if it’s not crazy enough that we think that they are “our celebrities”
if I’m being honest I’m not sure what I would’ve done if someone made A joke at the expense of my wife’s medical condition right in our face on national TV.
What I do know is, Love her or hate her or like me (and how anybody else should be in 2022 while the world burns) are completely indifferent to her. it can’t be easy for her to go out on national television, while dealing with something that’s affecting your physical appearance . I can’t imagine she’s not self-conscious regardless of how strong she is, how confident or how well-adjusted.
Her condition isn’t something contained to last nights incident . she and her husband live with every single day he knows how sensitive she is do it he’s aware of how much concerted them with it takes to deal with. If you’re taking away her agency or feelings in the situation because she’s a celebrity, well that’s just gross. She’s a person just like me and you and she has feelings and emotions His behavior was compounded by not only her pain and humiliation can take place in front of billions of people but the emotional duressed she deals with daily.
I see a lot of people saying he acted out of line and is a monster and they can’t believe someone could get that mad about “a joke”. I also see a lot of people on the Internet getting so angry at strangers they’re getting banned and thrown off multiple social media platforms. “well I’d never get that angry” maybe you wouldn’t but I can guarantee you probably wouldn’t say half the shit you say on the Internet to anyone’s face. Even without the consequence of getting five across the eyes most people aren’t brave enough anymore to speak their mind in front of anything other than their keyboard or the illumination of their telephone.
So as a fucking society we really probably don’t have the bandwidth to understand the situation. RTV addled show binging brains have begun are unable to empathize with anyone and seem to only be able to handle narratives that happen in 20 to 60 minute blocks.
For me getting people angry has always been part of my “job” and as someone who was on a live broadcast for a long time I definitely took my share of swings at pictures I shouldn’t have, it’s real tough not to make the joke when it pops in your head in that moment there’s 9 million gears moving so fast it totally disables your common sense and risk and reward sensors . I’ve definitely made some dumb jokes I’m ashamed of. I’d also like to think Rock didn’t know about JPS’s condition. But who knows.
I’m also the last one to criticize someone for acting inappropriately on a live feed. I’ve blown my top a zillion times and wish I could take it back.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve been in both these gentlemen‘s Position to a much lesser degree but I’ve been there.
This wasn’t in a bar or on the sidelines of your kids sports
Event. this was in the middle of a giant pressure cooker. A stew of ego, perspective embarrassment and heartbreak.
I’m not positive I’ve ever lived through anything like that stress ever.
My point is it’s very easy for people on their couch to say
“Well I’d never…
…. Make that joke “
….. get that angry”
… let him get away with that”
….. behave that way”
Because you have no idea. As humans we have a consistent ability to joyously live vicariously through our celebrities and ravenously tear them down.
Most people don’t know how it feels to be hanging off the side of a building. The wind blowing against you your grip loosening.
Most people don’t know what it’s like to be competing for anything at a really really high level what that disappointment joy and stress feels like. I reckon it’s even more surreal when it’s off something as subjective as your ark and not something you have any physical or mental agency over.
MOST people don’t know what it’s like to be confronted by violence.
Most people don’t know the stress of performing in front of large crowds.
Most people don’t know what it’s like to be on live TV in front of in an inconceivable amount of people all over the globe.
now I know you guys have seen cobra Kai enough and spoken in front of your eighth grade science class Enough times to think that you know what you would do, but you really don’t until you’re in it.
It’s easy to armchair quarterback peoples emotional responses and emotional decisions. It’s harder to realize that we don’t have a point of reference to empathize with someone’s feelings in a certain situation.
I feel like those are all things
We’ve become a nation of cannibals who feed off peoples pain and joy. Just watching the Oscars alone or the Super Bowl or the World Series for the Golden Globes for most people it’s probably about the losers as much as the winners. The pain fuels as much as the joy. You don’t have to agree with me you don’t have to think I know anything, You just have to look at the consistent thriving beast of “reality television” to know I’m correct.
Maybe we don’t have a point of reference to empathize with these celebrities in their situation but I think the reality is we are just waiting for them to be human enough to fuck up so we can tear them down.
So before we judge. Before we criticize.
I don’t wanna know what Jesus would do.
I don’t wanna know what Jason would do.
I don’t wanna know what anyone would do but you would do in that situation.
“ but how am I supposed to know you already said I have no idea how any of those people feel”
Odd are you won’t understand how it feels to make a decision or a joke on live television. How you would act in the spur of the moment or what is the appropriate etiquette of a televised award show.
maybe you shouldn’t be thinking of the logistics you can’t understand.
Try thinking of them as humans and thinking of how you would feel.
Your mouth moved faster than your brain someone got insulted and their emotions over took them. Somebody got their feelings hurt. somebody got hit. I feel like when you remove the celebrity and idol worship and replace it with humanity everyone has been on one side of that situation.
That’s that.
What is this debate focused on the right thing at all.
But what about the third side. The most important side. The side no one seems to be talking about because it’s not as sexy as a couple of famous people throwing their weight around.
Jada Pinkett Smith is losing her hair. That sucks. It sucks as it is when you don’t work in a profession where your every physical defect and blemish is being analyzed every single day. It’s a sucky thing to happen when you’re not in a insidiously misogynistic industry where women stop being valuable at 30 and if they’re lucky can get a couple mom or grandmother parts when they’re 35 or 40.
I’m sure some dunderhead is going to argue that “she should consider her self lucky that she has this disease And not XYZ”
And while there are worse diseases nobody’s happy to have any disease.
But let’s lay this out, shall we?
She went to support her husband. Her head shaved probably very self-conscious about it.
One Man Manchild picked the low hanging fruit to make a joke about her shaved head.
One man child stood up and made a scene.
Don’t know this lady from Kane I don’t know too much about her family or anything like that but I can’t imagine that any of this fit into her plans and as a empathetic human being I can only imagine that all she wanted to do was Lalo and be supportive (as low as you can possibly lay on an international television broadcast anyway)
But nobody’s really talking about that in that kind of proves my point.
The joke and the violent response is the way more sexy morsel to our cannibalistic minds.
We’ve become Chud. And now that this sort of gossip human grinding “entertainment“ is no longer limited to the tabloids on our aunties kitchen table and is fucking everywhere now. Added to the fact that water cooler talk has exploded to be a wide open hybrid of secret voting and screaming at the top of your lungs. We can’t even be bothered to wipe our mouth after we gorge.
It’s also worth mentioning that as we fill ourselves with gossip and glamour and pretend that these aren’t real people and that we are not vampires we’re totally ignoring the complete catastrophe our planet is in right now.
It’s gross
We are gross
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