I do want to get off the subject of the Slapgate/Will Smith matter but — and this is on me — my brain keeps going back to it…and not because I care mightily about the slapper or the slappee or anyone who makes more money in a month than some people make in a decade. There are absolutely more important issues in the news and even more important (to me) topics in my life.
But the incident probably touches most of us in some way, not just because we saw it as it happened or can't avoid seeing replays everywhere we look. Some of us have or have had issues in our lives with someone who thinks violence is a fitting response to someone saying something they don't like. Or with someone who thinks he or she is so important that normal laws of common decency or legal statutes don't apply to them. Or of someone getting outraged at something we said. Or of someone saying something that made us want to hit them. Or of some personal moment or issue that was, to us, reflected in Will Smith laying a hand on Chris Rock.
I wasn't sure what had me thinking so much about it and then somewhere on YouTube, I came across a clip of Ricky Gervais — the noted expert at having people get pissed off by jokes — and he said these words: "Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right."
And I suddenly realized what there was I wanted to say/write about this…
In this world, there's Being Right and there's Being Right and there's sometimes even Being Right. I'm talking about Being Right in one sense but not in another. In particular, you can be right from a by-the-rules standpoint and wrong from a strategic standpoint. Back in high school, there was one time a teacher of mine taught us some history that was just plain wrong — in a factual sense, not a political sense.
I tried correcting him politely but he didn't listen. He wasn't a bad teacher or a bad person. He was just the kind of human being who'd rather admit to a capital crime than a simple mistake…and for some adolescent reason that I hope I've long since outgrown, I felt a desperate need to "win" on this issue. So I went to the library and Xeroxed some references that proved I was right and I enclosed them in a letter I wrote to the principal…
…and there were two results. One was that the teacher was scolded somehow by his employer and he had to issue a correction and an apology to all his students, which he clearly did not like doing. The principal even came to the class I was in to hear him do it and, through gritted teeth, "thank" me for setting him straight.
That was one result. The other was that…well, I was going to say he made my life a living hell for the rest of that semester but that would be overstating the situation somewhat. Let's just say it was less pleasant in there, mostly towards me but also towards other students. I wasn't the only one who noticed the difference.
I came to regret what I'd done. Actions, as we all know, have consequences and they also have unforeseen, ancillary ones. I was right but like I said, there's Being Right and there's Being Right. I perhaps could have handled it in a manner that wouldn't have triggered those ancillary consequences. I could also have said nothing. It wasn't that important. The erroneous info would have been quickly forgotten and the rest of that term would have been more comfortable for all.
This is not a precise analogy to the Smith/Rock incident because, among other obvious reasons, I don't think Will Smith was right in any way to smack Chris Rock. I don't think anyone is ever right to resort to violence over words, especially words that were spoken without malice. But let's say Smith was on some level right to do what he did. There are people who seem to think so, most apparently people who've had a burr over smartass comedians.
So what did Smith achieve? Well, an awful lot of folks there think he's a maniac or that he has anger issues…and you don't have to venture far on the 'net to find some pretty insulting theories people have about him and his marriage and his wife. That would be the wife he was trying to protect from hurtful words. And every professional comedian who thinks of him- or herself as edgy and unafraid — which would be, like, 90% of them — is saying or writing the worst kind of material about the Smith-Pinkett marriage.
You hit one comedian, you hit them all. And most of them will hit back. You also have folks like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar saying things like, "With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community."
That can't feel good.
Just as it can't feel good to have people saying, as many are, that his career is over. I don't believe that for a minute. There's a rumor around that that evening, he also won the Best Actor award and careers don't end when you do that even when you distract from that little accomplishment. Still, given his past earning power, to lose just one starring movie role because some studio doesn't want to gamble on him or some director doesn't want to work with him costs him what? Twenty million dollars? Thirty?
And here's an article headlined "Apple TV is Sitting on a $120 Mil Will Smith Movie For Fall Plus Investors in his Company May Be Holding a $60 Mil Bag." Slapping Chris Rock is turning out to be pretty damned expensive.
Like I said, I don't think he was right in any way, shape or form to take a swing at Chris Rock. But given the results, it's not hard to feel that even if he had been right, he would still have been wrong.
I will now try not to think much more about this and therefore feel I have to write about it again. Hey, isn't Frank Ferrante's PBS show terrific?