For Chris Rock, Saturday night felt like his very own “Independence Day.”
During his hysterical live Netflix special, “Selective Outrage,” the comedian finally let it rip in front of a surely huge at-home audience in regards to the infamous 2022 Oscars at which Will Smith slapped him onstage.
A superb Rock pummeled Smith harder than the movie star did to that alien in his hit 1996 motion movie — and to, well, Rock himself on the Academy Awards.
“Everybody called that man a b—h,” Rock, 58 years old and in top form, said in regards to the media’s response to Smith’s well-reported marital problems within the lead-up to the Oscars. “And who’d he hit? Me! A [N-word] he knows he could beat. That is a few b—h-ass s–t.”
He joked of the physical pain: “It still hurts! I got ‘Summertime’ ringin’ in my ear!”
Nevertheless — and this was a through-line of Rock’s material all night — he refuses to present in to our 2023 culture of perpetual victimhood.
“At once we live in a world where the emergency room is crammed with motherf—ers with paper cuts,” he said.
“You won’t ever see me on Oprah or Gayle crying. You won’t ever see it. Never gonna occur. ‘I couldn’t imagine it! And I loved ‘Men in Black’!’,” Rock mockingly whimpered. “No! F–k that s–t. I took that hit like Pacquiao!”
While Rock devoted his final ten minutes to the Smith scandal, the primary hour brilliantly tore into touchy topics reminiscent of performative wokeness and Meghan Markle.
The comic nimbly eviscerated Prince Harry’s wife’s never-ending outrage over the British royals’ alleged racist tendencies.
“It’s the royal family!,” he said. “You didn’t Google these motherf—-ers? What the f–k is she talking about ‘She didn’t know’?!”
He went on: “That’s like marrying into the Budweiser family and going, ‘They drink quite a bit.’”
And as for allegations about a selected member of the royal family inquiring about what Markle’s first baby, Archie, would appear to be: “That’s not racist,” Rock insisted. “Because even black people wanna understand how brown the infant is gonna be!”
A few of Rock’s most vicious — and ingenious — material targeted what he dubbed “selective outrage,” or society’s tendency to choose and select whom to cancel for committing roughly the identical acts.
“One person does something, they get canceled. One other person does the very same thing, nothing,” he said. He’s enraged by “the sort of individuals who play Michael Jackson songs but won’t play R. Kelly. Same crime — one among ‘em’s just got higher songs.”
Rock’s also fed up with corporate brands taking empty stances on major issues to attain wokeness points. He said that he saw an indication on the athleisure clothing store Lululemon decrying racism and hatred.
“Who gives a f–k?,” he said. “You’re just selling yoga pants!”
But it surely was the Smith section everyone was waiting for, and you would feel Rock’s already-nuclear energy double as he insisted that the “King Richard” star’s anger was totally unrelated to anything the comic ever did.
“Everybody knows I had nothing to do with that s–t,” he said, suggesting Will’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s well-known affair along with her son Jaden’s rapper friend August Alsina in 2015 was the foundation of Smith’s angst toward him.
“For folks that don’t know — everybody knows! — his wife was f–king her son’s friend, OK?,” he said. “Now, I normally wouldn’t discuss this s–t, but for some reason these [N-word] put that s–t on the web! I had no idea why two talented people would do something that f–king low-down!”
The improbable special was a giant win for the uber-talented Rock, airing nearly one yr after the slap and just over per week before the 2023 Oscars telecast. On this Hollywood bout, he’s the unquestionable victor.
And it was also a tragic reminder that next week’s award show will give us three hours of yawns and tedium, when this truth-telling comedian brought 60 thrilling minutes of fearlessness and fire.
