More thoughts / afterthoughts
Mar. 29th, 2022 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
palusbuteoBoth Smith and Rock are in the wrong.
We have it engrained in our culture that having Smith bitchslap Rock for needling one too many needles and "got what he deserved" or "consequences of taking it one step too far" after years of joking about Smith's wife, etc. So there's this prerogative where certain types of comedians and kinds of jokes/humor, violence is the (desired) response, but it's not permissible because we're also supposed to have this counter balance of the culture where violence is "never the answer" yet we use it all the fucking time to both cause and "solve" problems.
All of it smacks of hypocrisy. And I'm not even going to touch the racial problems and implications in our pathetic culture and use of violence, and all of the ridiculous pressures from all sides associated with it.
So, Smith was in the wrong no matter what because he let his emotions get the better of him, and decided on a massive public forum for all to witness, record, replay and archive forever, to make his "statement" that enough was enough, even though we all felt at some moment during the incident that Rock "got what he deserved"
Rock, on the other hand, is also in the wrong. But we have it engrained in our culture since early childhood that physical deformities or medical conditions are ammunition for ridicule, that anything that looks outside of "normal" (whatever that's supposed to be, as determined by each generation and associated pop culture), or anything that veers off of our idiotic, impossible double standards, confines and definitions of "beauty" inherent within our culture. And what is deemed "funny" or even "shock/Oh No He Didn't/He Went There" humor that has been part of every day life for the last 40 years.
Everything can be and will be ridiculed. Nothing is off the table. Nothing is "too far", as long as it gets laughs and attention.
Smacks of the "bad press is good press"
As mentioned before, all of this overly dramatic theatre is another reason I refuse to watch these awards ceremonies which are elitist and incestuous by nature. Everything about it smacks of (white) privilege and of a celebrity "status" that is so far removed from reality. But yet, celebrities have to live within the confines of that existence in order to "protect" them from the rest of us psychotic vicarious animals.
And this shit has been going on for the 20 years we spent in the middle east utterly obliterating two countries and further destroying our pretty shitty two-faced reputation.
Meanwhile, what's the body count in Ukraine today? How many more hundreds are needed before it's "enough" to "end" the war, or postpone operations for another dozen years.
Even if Putin is removed, however it happens, what then. Will we see the insane power vacuum and ass-backwards corruption in the Post-Lenin and then Post-Stalin and then Post-Kruschev World?
All of that "promise" of a "better world" with the "collapse" in 1991 or 1994 however you want to date it. Worthless words. Meaningless. Pathetic.
Typical. Human. Par for the course.
More useless words and false promises with regards to the incredulous corruption and destruction of trump and the whole Jan 6 clusterfuck.
Can't make it any more obvious, yet, we continue to be "powerless" to be able to do anything about it, and they will never be prosecuted or held "accountable" (whatever the fuck that means), they will never "pay" for their crimes.
Nothing will be able to fix the damage that has been done. The burn marks are permanent. But yet they keep trying to paint over the stains.
We have it engrained in our culture that having Smith bitchslap Rock for needling one too many needles and "got what he deserved" or "consequences of taking it one step too far" after years of joking about Smith's wife, etc. So there's this prerogative where certain types of comedians and kinds of jokes/humor, violence is the (desired) response, but it's not permissible because we're also supposed to have this counter balance of the culture where violence is "never the answer" yet we use it all the fucking time to both cause and "solve" problems.
All of it smacks of hypocrisy. And I'm not even going to touch the racial problems and implications in our pathetic culture and use of violence, and all of the ridiculous pressures from all sides associated with it.
So, Smith was in the wrong no matter what because he let his emotions get the better of him, and decided on a massive public forum for all to witness, record, replay and archive forever, to make his "statement" that enough was enough, even though we all felt at some moment during the incident that Rock "got what he deserved"
Rock, on the other hand, is also in the wrong. But we have it engrained in our culture since early childhood that physical deformities or medical conditions are ammunition for ridicule, that anything that looks outside of "normal" (whatever that's supposed to be, as determined by each generation and associated pop culture), or anything that veers off of our idiotic, impossible double standards, confines and definitions of "beauty" inherent within our culture. And what is deemed "funny" or even "shock/Oh No He Didn't/He Went There" humor that has been part of every day life for the last 40 years.
Everything can be and will be ridiculed. Nothing is off the table. Nothing is "too far", as long as it gets laughs and attention.
Smacks of the "bad press is good press"
As mentioned before, all of this overly dramatic theatre is another reason I refuse to watch these awards ceremonies which are elitist and incestuous by nature. Everything about it smacks of (white) privilege and of a celebrity "status" that is so far removed from reality. But yet, celebrities have to live within the confines of that existence in order to "protect" them from the rest of us psychotic vicarious animals.
And this shit has been going on for the 20 years we spent in the middle east utterly obliterating two countries and further destroying our pretty shitty two-faced reputation.
Meanwhile, what's the body count in Ukraine today? How many more hundreds are needed before it's "enough" to "end" the war, or postpone operations for another dozen years.
Even if Putin is removed, however it happens, what then. Will we see the insane power vacuum and ass-backwards corruption in the Post-Lenin and then Post-Stalin and then Post-Kruschev World?
All of that "promise" of a "better world" with the "collapse" in 1991 or 1994 however you want to date it. Worthless words. Meaningless. Pathetic.
Typical. Human. Par for the course.
More useless words and false promises with regards to the incredulous corruption and destruction of trump and the whole Jan 6 clusterfuck.
Can't make it any more obvious, yet, we continue to be "powerless" to be able to do anything about it, and they will never be prosecuted or held "accountable" (whatever the fuck that means), they will never "pay" for their crimes.
Nothing will be able to fix the damage that has been done. The burn marks are permanent. But yet they keep trying to paint over the stains.
