action at the Oscars would just be silly, if it wasn’t for all its frightening implications. It all started when I caught Sean Penn commenting on the war in the Ukraine on CNN (you are behind schedule in terms of virtue signalling if you haven’t yet got your 'I support Ukraine’ bumper sticker). Penn — coaxing us all to whine ‘why don’t you just shut up you idiot actor’ -- was jawing on about how disgusting it would be if the Oscars didn’t acknowledge the war in the Ukraine. Here again politics consumes art; at that point I certainly wasn’t going to watch the boring, stupid Oscars (so afraid of a woke misstep that they don't have the guts to hire a lone host) but I turned it on for five minutes, for old times sake, and was shocked and appalled. Some dumb actress was going on about ‘diverse representation’ in Disney's Little Mermaid wearing a dress that was split up to the navel, and a little tube top she was bursting out of. Does our hypocrisy have no bounds? No, none at all. I shut it off, then went to the news this morning and the big CNN question was the same one that has been plaguing the mentally ill for weeks: ‘Will Putin use Nuclear weapons?’ Well if he does we’ll all be dead, so who cares really? Only networks care, as they are making a huge wad of money scaring the living daylights out of us. So I turned to the local news— it’s the only place, by the way, you can get any real news these days — I mean about art, entertainment, the world, and non-white people (i.e. the un-Ukrainians). So there was the Will Smith slap moment. Wow. I almost wished I’d watched the Oscars. Rumour has it that they gave Smith the Oscar for his performance at the Oscars -- not just because he finally revealed he’s too old and tired to worry about his abs anymore, in King Richard. Let me explain this moment to you, and what it means. It means the end of art. Chris Rock, in case you haven’t noticed, is a real ‘artist’— at least in my opinion, he is friggin’ talented as hell, and manages not only to be political but apolitical too, as his humour is dark and politically incorrect and yes, truly funny (he should have been hosting the Oscars). The only loyalty Chris Rock has is to humanity, and history, and truth, his own personal truth as a standup comic, and I would say, for this reason, his work runs at least neck and neck with art. Well, anyway, it seems we are not allowed to make jokes anymore. Nothing is funny. That’s the lesson in Will Smith’s crazy unhinged moment. Because with humour, as soon as you say ‘I draw the line there’ you have cancelled all the fun. Similarly, when you say, about art (for adults) everything should be allowed except (I don’t know, negative comments about trans people, perhaps?) you have erased the entire history of art, and you have condemned art to a boring and inoffensive future which means, politics. What this moment said was that in this battle between politics and art, politics has won. As I understand it (and it’s very complicated to understand why Will Smith was ‘offended’) Rock made a joke about Will Smith’s wife’s haircut — which is due to an illness (that’s where the 'politic' comes in, I mean come on, Jada Pinkett Smith is a victim? — oh yeah, right, I forgot, she’s an enormously wealthy, talentless, movie star, victim — pardon me I forgot to feel sorry for her) i.e. she has alopecia. So Rock cannot tell a joke because the punchline rests on the vicitmization of the disabled (?) (Oh I guess we can’t quite call her disabled -- so, the ill poor little rich girl, Jada Pinkett Smith.) No, we can’t have art anymore; it might hurt somebody’s feelings. That’s the crux of it. But there’s more. So Smith, then when he receives the Oscar (as I say, for his performance at the Oscars, bravely disabling art) he apologizes (sort of) in his acceptance speech. He starts out with ‘Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family.” Then he mentions God. He goes on to say he ‘protected’ the two actresses while making the movie King Richard. Then he talks about love and rivers. And then he cries and speaks of ‘disrespect’ and calls Chris Rock 'the devil.’ Consequently, he got a standing ovation. Well we now know what the sides are: do you stand with art and entertainment -- with beauty, poetry, and inscrutable truth? Or are you on the side of God, the family, love, rivers, and victims? No contest. THERE WILL BE NO MORE ART! Will Smith and the Oscars killed it. Fine. But the whole debacle cannot be left behind without speaking of Smith’s unabashed and repellent sexism. So his wife -- and by inference any man’s wife -- must be protected from hurt. But what is the nature of the hurt that Smith is protecting his wife from? Verbal hurt. I have no problem with a man defending a woman from physical violence -- because men are generally stronger than women and do have a responsibility to protect them when they are physically abused. But no modern, adult, woman in this post-feminist culture needs to be protected by her husband from someone’s hurtful remarks. That was Victorian ladies. Never mind that words are not violence (if they are, then, again, it is the end of art). And secondly -- well aren’t you a big brute of a sexy motherf-r Will Smith? You cave man, you neanderthal. Let’s just get it on, you hot cookie, you are a real man! A real man protects his woman. Yeah. There are other politics going on here too (which I won’t comment on because I am no expert). But I know the end of art when I see it. Oh, by the way at the funeral of art (to be held soon) please don’t sing, alright? A) it might spread the new COVID-19 variant and B) well -- you know -- it might be ‘offensive.'
