![]() “How was your weekend?” he asked the crowd. Rock first broke his public silence about the slap three nights after the Oscar ceremony, last year in Boston. On the road, Rock has often worked in jokes and reflections on the slap. ![]() The shows, which had been announced before the 2022 Oscars, have featured performances with Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart. Arsenio Hall guaranteed Rock’s set would cause Smith to smack his television set.įor much of the past year, Rock has been touring new material in a long string of performances as part of his Ego Death tour. Paul McCartney, Tracy Morgan, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld and one of last year’s Oscar hosts, Wanda Sykes, all added pre-taped messages. ![]() Dana Carvey and David Spade hosted the after-show. Netflix added pre- and post-show bookends of star-studded live programming with, as host comedian Ronny Chieng said, “every comedy legend who owes Netflix a favor.” Bono lent a opening introduction. “And you know what my parents taught me?” he said. Rock said the reason why he didn’t physically retaliate at the Oscars was because “I got parents.” Selective Outrage is selectively funny at best and only comes fully to life as the final curtain beckons.Before dropping his microphone and holding his arms up triumphantly, Rock left the crowd with one last zinger. It’s just a shame that five extraordinary minutes of visceral comedy about an incident that may well define Rock’s career – it certainly will have that effect on Smith - is proceeded by an hour of stodge. That one flubbed gag aside, Netflix’s first venture into live broadcasting goes off without a hitch. And then, a heartbeat later, after an admittedly impressive tirade, he’s done. He’s dancing around the only topic anyone wants to hear about. There is material about the Kardashians, trans people, and his struggle as a black man from a humble background raising privileged daughters. Yet many of the jokes have a reheated, straight-from-the-microwave quality. How, he says, could Meghan have been surprised at how the relationship unravelled? Doesn’t she have google? He describes the Monarchy as the “Sugar Hill Gang” of racism, a reference to an iconic rap act. He also takes potshots at Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and her shock over her estrangement from the Royal Family. Both artists are disgraced – but Jackson gets a pass because “he has better songs”. He wonders, for instance, why R.Kelly is shunned when Michael Jackson’s music is still socially acceptable. Rock, wearing a white suit and a necklace referencing his late friend Prince’s looping “symbol”, gets in a few clever lines. This is a popular talking point for American comedians: Smith’s friend David Chapelle, for instance, has been banging on about the dangers of “wokeness” for years. The loose theme of the show – which Rock has been road-testing in venues across the US in recent weeks – is that the “Woke” practice selective outrage. The garbled line proves that the broadcast truly is live and that Rock is walking a comedic high-wire.Īlas, the Smith material is preceded by an hour of comedy of widely varying quality. This ruins a punchline about the star of Concussion giving him a concussion. He even muddles a payoff when confusing the Smith movies Concussion and Emancipation. Why didn’t he hit Smith back? “Because I got parents… my parents taught me, don’t fight in front of white people.” Rock’s anger is obvious as he reaches for the punchline. She hurt him way more than he hurt me.” The implication is that, when Rock, as Oscar host, made a joke about Pinkett Smith, her husband saw red. “Ain’t nobody been interviewed about it on television. Rock blames Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, for talking openly about her infidelity – and then interviewing her husband about it on her internet show. “Will Smith practices selective outrage,” he says. When he does, however, he doesn’t hold back. His show, Selective Outrage, clocks in at 65 minutes – and he doesn’t turn to The Slap until the final five. It is also the first time Rock has directly and at length addressed the Smith slap, which overshadowed the actor’s Best Actor win and result in a 10-year ban from the Academy Awards.īut Rock takes his time getting around to the subject on everyone’s mind during his set from the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore. Airing at 3am UK time, it’s Netflix’s first real-time broadcast, fuelling speculation that the streamer will follow the example of Amazon Prime which is already broadcasting live sport. Rock’s performance is significant on two fronts. “Everybody knows I got smacked a year ago,” says Rock. But, with the first anniversary of the Will Smith Oscar “slap” approaching, the comedian finally lands his punches against the actor who assaulted him with the world watching. There’s a lot of shadowboxing throughout Chris Rock’s live comedy special on Netflix.
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