#OSCARS FAUX PAS PC#
#OSCARS FAUX PAS LICENSE#

His commentary was more effective and more nuanced than the deadly dull earnestness of the Academy’s (first African-American!) president promising the audience they’d make things better, or Lady Gaga’s Greek chorus of sexual-assault survivors, or Leonardo DiCaprio’s decision to perform a Tumblr post on climate change instead of an acceptance speech.

Showing up did not make Rock a sell-out racist, and his presence likely reached more people than Smith’s conspicuous absence. Rock’s mere presence at the Oscars disproved their thesis that if one is not an #OscarsSoWhite activist one cannot care about race issues.

Outrage mongers love to shut people up when they don’t agree with them. Not in their political views…but in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody… You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.” He told Vulture last year he stopped playing college campuses because “they’re way too conservative.

#OSCARS FAUX PAS PC#

Rock is no stranger to the slings and arrows of the PC police. Regular-people Twitter exploded in a frenzy of “YASSSS, PREACH.” Social-justice-warrior Twitter exploded in a frenzy of carping.

#OSCARS FAUX PAS LICENSE#

“Everything’s not sexism, everything’s not racism,” Rock proclaimed at the end of his monologue, begging American society to laugh with him and giving us license to chill the heck out. He could’ve opined on how Black Twitter, which didn’t exist for previous generations, fueled this frustration. King also offered some notes to the comedian:Īt that point, Rock could’ve taught his white audience how we are in a new era of black activism and consciousness that doesn’t really take slights and snubs with a smile anymore. A New York Daily News op-ed by activist Shaun King of #BlackLivesMatter fame seemed to suggest this joke was at the expense of the lynched instead of a pleading for perspective. All affronts must be the greatest of affronts. This idea is anathema to the outrage-stokers. You know, when your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.’ Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time, you know? We had real things to protest you know, we’re too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer. Say ‘62 or ‘63, and black people did not protest. I’m sure there were no black nominees some of those years. You gotta figure that it happened in the 50s, in the 60s - you know, in the 60s, one of those years Sidney didn’t put out a movie. It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole no black nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times. ‘Now the thing is, Why are we protesting? The big question: Why this Oscars? Why this Oscars, you know? Modern society, social media, and hashtag activism have a way of treating every social problem and every perceived slight as if they require our outrage levels to go to 11. You know, Robert De Niro’s never said, ‘I better slow this acting down, so Meryl Streep can catch up.’īut what emerged was a diagnosis and dismantling of the outrage culture that brought us #OscarsSoWhite and #AskHerMore: It’s not track and field. You don’t have to separate ‘em. Think about it: There’s no real reason for there to be a man and a woman category in acting. They ask the men more because the men are all wearing the same outfits, O.K.? Every guy in there is wearing the exact same thing. You know, if George Clooney showed up with a lime green tux on, and a swan coming out his ass, somebody would go, ‘What you wearing, George?’ Check, on the #AskHerMore campaign’s allegations of sexism in red-carpet questioning: Observations that make conservatives gleeful and liberals tsk-tsk. This year, in the In Memoriam package, it’s just going to be black people that were shot by the cops on their way to the movies. Things are going to be a little different at the Oscars. Jokes that made liberals glad and conservatives wince. In a room so uniformly liberal, Rock could have castigated the “White People’s Choice Awards,” as he called them, with uniformly safe, friendly jabs, but he seemed to grasp that if the problem is a lack of diversity, why not diversify one’s targets? Hence, his performance’s South-Parkian feel- a roving combo of social commentary and satire that left one wondering exactly what its author believes. You know? And the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart, O.K.? They’re not gonna cancel the Oscars because I quit. But, I realized, they’re gonna have the Oscars anyway.

Oscars faux pas