About Will Smith and Chris Rock
It’s time to recognize celebrity worship is a bit distracting
Very Unpopular Strong Opinions Blog by Christyl Rivers
I didn’t watch the Oscars. I am probably over-involved in the bigger world stage. I am keeping informed. I am watching developments. I am staying aware.
In other words, I am doom-scrolling while the world burns.
And, that is not good. We all need some escapism. We all need to find comedy to balance the tragedy. We need to laugh at the villains, and make fun of the losers who enable them.
We all need to take a walk, smell some spring flowers. Are the robins out yet? (Here in Kona, we only have invasive species that have taken the place of native birds, but the Myna birds are tending a new nest!)
Even here, it is spring. The flowers and colors are bursting and blooming. All human hearts should rejoice in hope and rebirth.
But, no. Too many of us are completely invested in the latest celebrity scandal. This week it’s Chris Rock versus Will Smith.
Next week it will be another celebrity spat.
I can’t decide if it’s a healthy escape, or a total head in the tar sands diversion.
Distraction or infraction?
Like I said, we do all need some escape. Therefore, I am examining why it rankles the nerves that celebrity is such a distraction. Perhaps it’s because we are all too easily immersed in crass, superficial things, and we aren’t feeling our own power to change the world.
Yes, I know some people are changing the world, Greta Thunberg, Jane Goodall, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, maybe Jada Pinkett Smith?
I am fairly certain she is changing the world for those affected by such a disease that has thrust her upon the world stage. Not to mention, her prince: Will Smith, and his response with a resounding slap to Chris Rock who made a super sleazy and cheap joke about her.
Smith did not have the best ever non-violent response to defend his lady’s honor. Yet, here I am, in Kona, Hawaii, feeling something about men, women, masculinity, feminism, cancel culture, culture wars, societal norms, and societal changes in the tumultuous age of the whole world being slapped in the face.
I wrote a poem about it. But my goofy, psychosocial, cultural commentary poems are read by about five people, so not making much of a point there.
Some are hopeful — or is it we are in denial? — that the horrors in Europe will find a way to fade into peace, or at least a truce. Maybe Putin, like other historic, hysteric and demented losers, will just declare victory, take his ball and go home.
Overall, I believe we all need to examine why we are so easily distracted. We seem to demand polarization when the world desperately needs collaboration.
We shall probably, as ever, have both in fits and starts.