Transcript of AE 1130 - The Goss: Will Smith Bitch Slaps Chris Rock

G'day, you mob. Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So, today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news, whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world.

And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right? If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss. So, these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English.

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Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time, keep practising, and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit, I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode, guys. Smack the bird. And let's get into it.

So, Will Smith, dad.

Take my wife's name out of your fucking mouth.

I know.

No, seriously.

You have to say it with the American...

I can't.

...African American vernacular English.

No.

Take my wife's name out your fucking mouth. Yeah. Jesus Christ, guys. So, I think the whole world is talking about this currently.

Yes.

So, okay, famous comedian Chris Rock was hosting the Oscars. What's the Oscars, Dad?

It's the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. So, movies, basically, it's their annual awards ceremony.

In the US, right?

In the US.

Is the Grammy's in the US as well, but that's music?

Yeah.

All right. So yeah. So, it was the Oscars. They've kind of been getting more and more risque in terms of the people hosting it. Right. So, they had Ricky Gervais- Was it three years in a row?

No... (inaudible) ...Yeah.

Yes. And he was just tearing into the...

He just used it as an excuse to have a go at people.

He was just roasting the audience. Right. Who are all famous actors.

And not just the audience but everybody else that he could as well.

Yeah, he was just literally shitting on everyone. Right. So, it was- And it was incredible because obviously it boosted ratings. I think people just wanted to see Ricky Gervais effectively, no holds barred. Right. Just going for it.

But that's sort of the point where I think you were meant to- I don't know if it's always been like this, but at least more recently there's always been someone hosting who's sort of poking fun at the event itself, Hollywood and the people in Hollywood. And I think after Ricky Gervais is probably a hard act to follow, right, with Chris Rock, although Chris Rock is a famous African American comedian who is brutal.

Yes.

He's up there with Gervais and like Dave Chappelle...

Yeah.

...You know, all those sorts of comedians. So, anyway, he was hosting this event live on TV. Apparently, there were about 15.4 million viewers, and I don't know if that was globally or just the US.

...In the US.

Yeah. So, a huge, what's that? About 5% of the population, right?

Yeah...

So, 1 in 20 people are watching that. He was just doing his thing and then he suddenly made a joke about Will Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who is suffering from alopecia areata. So, that's female hair loss and that's an autoimmune disease, I think, as opposed to what I have, which is alopecia- Where have I got it written down here? Had it here somewhere. Androgenic alopecia... Or androgenetic alopecia.

Commonly known as male pattern baldness. Yeah.

Yeah. So...

Which is a basically a genetic thing. It's not an autoimmune thing.

Yeah. So- Anyway, so he's there talking away and then all of a sudden, he's just like, "oh, Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it." And I didn't get it originally.

You haven't seen G.I. Jane.

I have, but a very long time ago.

...Yeah.

And I think the majority of people watching it probably didn't get it straight away. And so, this was sort of an ironic thing where if Will Smith hadn't reacted, no one would have really paid attention to it...

...Exactly. It was a throwaway line that most of the people in the audience would have got it, the live audience. Most of the people listening would have just gone, what? And just let it go.

Yeah. So, the story is, G.I. Jane, the movie was a movie, I assume it's from like the '90s, early 2000s...

Yeah, '90s, I think.

...Demi Moore...

Yeah.

...In it and she is this badass female soldier and as such has a shaved head.

Yeah.

And so, he was making the joke there...

Well, she had to have her head shaved in order to go to boot camp.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So, anyway, the joke there was that Jada had- Was preparing for her role as G.I. Jane 2 and had shaved her head. But actually, she shaved her head because she has alopecia areata.

Anyway, so effectively it rolled out with him saying this joke. Will Smith is then seen on camera shitting himself laughing. And so you're kind of like, okay, cool. But you look at Jada and she's rolling her eyes and like throwing daggers, staring daggers back at Chris Rock. And so, I've got it sort of blow by blow here. I'm not sure if I'll include the actual audio of what goes on.

But effectively Chris Rock says okay and then continues on. And then suddenly you see in his eyes that he notices someone coming up to the stage. It's Will Smith and he's like, uh-oh. Will Smith comes up, just storms up and out of nowhere just slaps him in the face.

Like I thought he was going to punch him as it was happening, but then you see the replays and it's a open hand bitch slap. Which is almost worse, right? Being bitch slapped by another man. And then Will Smith just turns around and walks back off stage, sort of tightening his suit up.

And you think, well, that's it. It's over.

...It's staged, right? At that time, you're like, oh, wow, okay. It's a sort of slapstick comedy in the middle of the Oscars. Lol and you think that's it. And Chris just looks stunned and kind of is just like, as Will Smith's walking back is like, "wow, Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." And then, all of a sudden you hear this, "keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth", in the background. And Chris is like, "what?"

And then he says it again, right?

With the cameras on him...

With the cameras on him and yelling it even louder. And he's like, "I'm going to, okay." I think actually he says before that, he's like, "dude, wow, dude. It was a G.I. Jane joke."

Yeah.

And again, I didn't get it until afterwards why he said that. Anyway, after Will Smith says it a second time, you see Chris Rock going to like, he just says, "I'm going to, okay." And then he's like, "oh, I could-" and just leaves it, looks sideways and then he's like, "that was the greatest night in the history of television." And so, there's so much going on there that's really interesting.

Because originally, I was like, why is this such a sore point when it seemed like a pretty innocuous kind of low ball joke about this woman with a shaved head? I didn't know about her alopecia.

Yeah. I think Will Smith and Kevin Rock have got a history as well, though.

Kevin Rock? Or Chris Rock?

Sorry. Chris Rock.

Yeah. You mean Kevin Hart?

Kevin Hart. No.

Yeah.

No, I think they've got a history as well, so...

You reckon?

...Of- Not particularly liking each other.

I didn't reali- Yeah. I haven't really looked into that too much. I'm just gonna open my beer here. Hopefully it doesn't foam over. But yeah. So, as a result of this and me being like, oh, what the fuck did I just watch?

What just happened?

I know. And while it was happening, you're like, that was clearly a joke, right? And but the thing is that no one ever pulled the curtain away, right, and just said, yeah, that was just us fucking around. That was a joke, right. Because you imagine if it was a joke, you might hold out a little bit with not revealing the fact, but pretty quickly, you would imagine the whole point of it would be like, lols. You know, we were kidding.

So, anyway, I looked into it and I'm like, okay, so Jada has got alopecia areata, this hair loss stuff, which isn't her fault. And she's probably- She's obviously got a massive complex about. But she's come out recently with all these videos saying, no, it's not a problem, just accept it, life's good, blah, blah, blah.

And so, you're also there going like, well, if it's such an issue- If it's not such an issue, why are you reacting like that? And then digging in when he was like, "dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke." And then the whole "oh man, I could-" and leaves it.

And then you dig in and you're like, oh my God. There's this whole history of apparently Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith with this weird, open relationship thing for the last decade or so where they've been sleeping with other people.

And there's been people wondering, are they cheating on one another? Do they actually know about what one another is doing? What's going on behind the scenes here that is potentially leading to a lot of tension in their relationship. And Will Smith obviously just kind of snapped after he probably saw Jada's reaction to the joke, despite him having shat himself laughing originally.

Anyway, so it's been very, very weird and it's really interesting to see people's responses. So, you've seen a lot of people being like, I stand with Jada. And it's like, well, I mean, I'm not for her being, you know...

Jada is...

...Humiliated.

Jada is an innocent victim in this whole thing that in a sense of a joke was played on her, but now it's a far bigger thing than it ever would have been if they'd just let it go.

100% no one...

Nobody would have noticed.

No one even knew about these issues affect, like, comparatively yesterday. If you weren't following Jada on social media and wanting to learn about this crap, you would never have known about any of these issues. You'd just be like, oh, she just stylised herself and decided to shave her head.

Yeah. Look, I think the bigger issue is that he is a self-entitled, famous person of a male persuasion who has completely overreacted and not just overreacted in a sense of being insulted or humiliated or whatever else, on behalf of his wife, who has then taken it a step further, committed an assault on a colleague...

On live TV.

...Live television and then verbally abused him twice.

Yeah.

And you just sit there and go, how self-entitled does somebody have to be to think that this is, any of that is okay?

Not only that, but of someone of such privilege.

Yeah.

What is it to you for your wife to have had a joke made about her when you are so rich, so powerful...?

And then not only that, he doubled down when he actually won the award...

10 minutes later.

...10 minutes later, he won the Best Actor Award. He doubles down, demanding that Chris Rock apologise to him. For fuck's sake. It's like he's the one who's suddenly been insulted here.

I know, it was just insane. But the funny thing was, I didn't realise- So, yeah, obviously all of this relationship stuff that's been going on over the last decade, I didn't really know about. I mean, you would probably have to be a fan of it or in Hollywood to really know about what's going on. And again, it's not really any of my business anyway.

And half its probably not happening anyway.

Yeah, but Chris Rock obviously knows about it and that was why he was saying, "dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke." And "oh, I could-" And then he just leaves it. And you're like, he could have torn you a new arsehole...

Exactly.

...With the amount of probably open relationship sleeping jokes. Like I think, one of the ones I saw online was, Will Smith can take his wife sleeping with other men but can't take a joke.

Yeah.

Your just- There are all these memes going around.

Well, that was- I am astounded at Chris Rock's ability just to carry on.

Yeah.

But also his self-control to not...

Inflame it.

...Whip out a line and inflame it. Like the most inflammatory thing he could have done was go...

Is that all you got?

...Big slap, is that the best you've got? To which you can almost guarantee with the way Will Smith had gone over the top, he would have got up and tried something.

Yeah, there was- Even I was just thinking like, is that it, Muhammad Ali?

I know.

Cos Will Smith had acted as Muhammad Ali, right.

Exactly. But sorry, just I think the other thing that amazes me is- And it all happened in such a hurry and that the Will Smith Award was only ten or 15 minutes later.

Yeah.

But I am- Still sit there amazed that there wasn't an immediate response from the Academy and the TV producers to just walk over to Will Smith, tap him on the shoulder and say, you have to leave now or we're going to make a real scene here and pull security. And then to say, and Will Smith has won his award, but based on the previous behaviour, we're not going to allow him back on stage.

Oh, man. 100%. Or not going to give it to him.

No, no, you have to give it to him because it's decided. Like you can't renege on something after the event, effectively. But to simply say, yes, Will Smith has won the award, but he won't be accepting it on stage. And let it go there. But they clearly just chose to just hopefully let it go and nobody will notice. But really every- The world noticed.

Well, and that's the thing I think that irks a lot of people watching this. They're just like, how much shit do these people get away with? If that had been anyone at a bar or a club or a pub, and they'd done that to anyone else, even if it was deserved.

Like if somebody to come up and just literally abused your wife verbally and you slapped them and that was where you drew the line, you didn't bash the shit out of them, you just slapped them once. The security guard will throw you out straight away and they'd probably call the police. And yet if you're famous and you're rich and everything, it's like you can do whatever you want, because...

There's a lot of stuff going around this morning, too, about what if that had been Amy Schumer?

Yeah.

What if that had been a female comedian who had said that, and he got up and slapped her?

Firstly, yeah, the- I saw that argument too. And I was just sort of like...

Why is it any different because he's hit a man?

I don't think he would have if it had been a female...

...Probably.

...Because of that.

Yeah, exactly.

And ironically, I think Jada probably would have been less offended if it hadn't been a male who said it and probably a male she doesn't like who says it, which again is an interesting thing re- Who says what and the intent and everything behind it. It's not necessarily what's said that's the problem, it's who says it, right.

But yeah, I remember I was just thinking Chris Rock's about, what, almost 60 years old and he's 50 pounds or so smaller than Will Smith.

And so, yeah, there were all these arguments of like, oh, you couldn't make that comment of "what if it was a woman?" Because women are inherently smaller than men. And it's like that aside, Chris Rock's smaller than Will Smith. Like if it had been the Mountain from Game of Thrones doing it, would that have been okay? Or...

If it had been Dwayne Johnson up there making that joke would Will have got off his seat? He would have been glued to his seat, just sort of half grinning. Yeah.

I know. So, there is a lot to it where your just like, yeah, it's just disgusting. And not only that, Will, like, you're in the spotlight. You're a role model to millions of kids around the place. And not only that, you know, not to play the race card, but imagine how many young black boys in America look up to him. And we know that there is this inherent issue with violence against women in our societies in general.

Just violence.

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Not violence against women, but violence in general. Yeah.

You can react to something- You can react to somebody making a joke about someone else by hitting them.

Well, and, yeah, the whole cliche, I need to defend my woman...

Yeah.

...As well, with violence. And your just like, it's just nuts that that happened- Even if you wanted to do that, even if that was your first reaction, you would hope that you would have the wherewithal to be like...

...Self-control and just go, nah.

...Not worth it.

Or you make a joke about it and you get off your seat and point at him and then sit down.

Yeah.

Do that. So, you know you've responded, but. Yeah.

Well, and I saw so many women saying, too, that if they had been Jada, they'd be like, I don't need a man to get up there and slap the guy. Like, how infantilizing is that as well?

Yeah. If she wants to do that, she could have got up and slapped him.

Well, and that probably would have been more justified, right. In terms of at least accepted by the public. Anyway, yeah. So, it was really nuts and I was kind of...

It was a weird one.

It was one of those moments where I was like, I'm just so disappointed in Will Smith for allowing himself to do that. Right. For allowing himse- I mean, I don't know what's going on in his home life, obviously. You would imagine if that's your initial reaction to just being- Someone making a joke about you, and you take it too violence straight away that there's issues that need to be dealt with.

I think so. I think, but there's also just this- There's a sense of self-entitlement among a group, particularly a group of extremely well known Hollywood actors who are also Scientologists.

Oh, yeah. Is Will Smith one?

I believe so. And so, there is that. And it's an essence of that whole Scientology thing of, you take control of your life immediately and you can do anything you like as long as you can justify it to take control of your life. And I think that's just, you know, out of control.

Yeah. Apparently, he's not part of Scientology.

Isn't he?

No.

I've read some things this morning that were saying he was.

Yeah, who knows, maybe he was in it in the past, but he came out of it.

Well, if he got out of it. Congratulations.

I know. Yeah, but it is just really, really disappointing. And then for him to get up and make this- Yeah. It was crazy to see how many people came over to him straight away during the ad breaks, and were giving him support. I think Denzel Washington was there. He also had his PR woman at the Oscars. And I was like, how is she just on hand to deal with anything like that may come up or whatever? And she came and gave him all this advice.

He's going- He was going to win the best actor.

Yeah.

And so, that's why she's there to handle the press immediately after that.

But I found the speech that he gave so paper thin.

Oh, of course it was.

It was just like he straight away was in tears, and then all these references to how he was a defender of his family and a defender of women and all the women in the movie, he was King Richard, the defender of them and all this. And he was doing- I think he brought God into it as well. And he was like, God is helping me be a better defender or whatever, you know.

And you're just like, these are all just justifications for your bad behaviour.

Yeah, exactly.

Like you should- And I felt like they were crocodile tears, right? I feel like a lot of those tears were, "I fucked up"...

Yeah.

..."And I'm watching my career tanking"...

Go down the toilet.

Yeah. Like this is one of those key moments in lives where your like, everything after this is different.

Yeah.

But yeah. The ultimate thing that I came away from this thinking was just like, no one thought about this. No one knew about your wife's issues. No one really understood what was going on in terms of you having relationship- Weird relationship things going on in the background too. Now everyone's talking about it as a result of you...

Including us.

Yeah, including us making this decision. So, your kind of like, you've- And I said this to Rory, my brother-in-law, right. I was like, we need an expression in English where people aim to do something, and they get the complete opposite result.

Yeah.

Right. Where you go and you try and fix something or resolve something and you end up making it 10 times, 100 times worse. There must be some good way of expressing that idea, colloquially or idiomatically.

Yeah, I think it's schadenfreude in German.

That's "enjoying the pain of others".

Yeah.

I think, so.

But...

I mean, that's what we're feeling right now.

Yes, exactly.

And yeah, the punch or the slap, the bitch slap has been now seen- I think there was one video from The Guardian. It had been viewed 60 million times in less than a day. Oh, way more than that, I would think. Well, that was that one clip...

Yeah.

...On YouTube.

Yeah, exactly.

And so, there were dozens on there with multiple millions. And so...

And the number of memes that have come around immediately with overlaid commentary.

Well, it's going to take over that meme of Batman slapping Robin.

Oh, yeah.

You seen that meme going around? This will be the new version of it. And ironically, that film, that video clip of him slapping Chris Rock has now been seen tens of times more than his film King Richard...

Yes.

...Ever was or ever will be. So, it is just one of these situations where your like, if you'd just taken it, everyone would have been better for it. Because your wife's definitely not in a better position now. Your career's not and your reputation is in tatters.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what you guys think of this whole situation. I don't know. I asked you guys publicly on Instagram and I think most of you were sort of like, yeah, too far, too far. Way too far.

Exactly.

Yeah. Anyway, thanks for joining us, guys. And we will see you next time.

Bye.