EPISODE 709: THAT TIME I CHECKED IN ON TWITTER MIDWAY THROUGH MY NEWSLETTER

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Mar 28, 2022

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POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

It’s Oscars Sunday. I gotta be honest, I don’t see a version of watching them that isn’t hate watching right now, so I’m not doing it. If you spent your night watching them, I hope you enjoyed them!

I did see Beyoncé’s performance of “Be Alive” from Compton and I found it absolutely incredible. “King Richard” is one of those movies that it seems like nobody has seen. And honestly, I can see why. It’s the story of Serena and Venus Williams’ father Richard…like, why do that? You’re dealing with two of the most incredible black female athletes in history, but you’re going to tell their story from the point of view their father’s struggles to help them? It just seems so wrong headed. Let them speak for themselves, you know?

But it turns out, it’s a really good film. It is all about the challenges of parenting kids, and the pressures and expectations you have to deal with. Honestly, if you are a parent, you should see this movie. You will appreciate it.

And then you should watch Beyoncé’s performance, which I’ve placed below, because it is yet another powerful celebration of black women from her, and one that really zooms in on black girls. I love it so much.

So as I finished this section I went to Twitter to see where the Oscars were at. And the first thing that popped up in my feed was Will Smith walked up on stage as Chris Rock was preparing to announce best documentary and slapped him in the face, then yelled at him to stop making jokes about his wife (which Rock had just done).

So….yeah, maybe it’ll read kind of weird to open this newsletter with me praising a Will Smith movie?

If you’re wondering what that was, here’s the deal: Smith’s wife Jada is losing her hair. She’s got alopecia, and there’s nothing they can do. It’s been going on for years, she’s talked very publicly about it. And Chris Rock thought it would be funny to make fun of that by saying she’s going to be in G.I. Jane II.

And that is just unbelievably terrible, and Will Smith…reacted.

I don’t support any act of violence, obviously. But in the moment I guess my main feeling was that it’s reprehensible for a man to go out and publicly humiliate a woman, let alone one with a health condition.

Honestly, I’m just so tired of men finding ways of justifying being terrible to women. There are lots of people online saying Rock didn’t know, he’s just being funny. This is the man who actually produced a documentary on the politics of black hair, making fun of a woman he’s mocked before, who has publicly talked about her health issue. But sure, let’s say he didn’t know.

I’m still going to say, if you’re going to tell a joke about someone that millions will see, you’re responsible for knowing what the hell you’re talking about.

In the craziest twist of all, as I’m sure you know, Smith then won Best Actor for King Richard. I don’t think anyone expected that; in fact that’s part of why I wrote about it at the top. And his speech was clearly complicated by what had happened. The early part…I mean…he’s trying to do an Oscar speech that he prepared and also he is still dealing with what he just did. So yeah. There’s some pretty weird God talk and talk about protecting his cast, and it’s kind of a lot.

Personally, I felt like he figured out what he needed to say about 90 seconds in. If you haven’t seen it, here’s that clip. (If Substack starts from the beginning, jump to 1:38.)

I don’t know what it’s like to have be on all the time, but I will say I can think of a lot of partners, siblings and friends who would be similarly upset with what Rock did.

I didn’t watch the rest of the Oscars, but I did see that Jessica Chastain and CODA both won, which is really great.

This tweet captures the only other thing I felt.