Perhaps no performance art is as terrifying as standup comedy. In the days I performed on the New York City comedy club circuit, the standup spotlight could be downright scary to me at times. Will my joke be true? How am I able to improvise if they do not? Was the crowd festive or hostile?
Comedy, good standup comedy touches people personally, and when done right, awakens the audience to the funny nuances of life that otherwise would have remained dormant in them until the talented comic came along. A comedian can reveal that reality, nearly surgically, with a good joke. And the sound of them leaving the body is a nice hearty laugh.
A singer, musician or actor has nearly no pressure to perform as a comic does. Finish a song or scene, and the crowd will politely (or sincerely) applaud at the end. Not so with comedians. He needed to generate laughter throughout the set for the five minute schtick to become a fleeting eternity amidst the boos and insults of drunken patrons.
On my best nights, I can hardly leave the audience. At worst, my jokes bring silence, snide remarks, or ridicule from the crowd. Even then, with the sinking feeling that I had bombed, nobody, no matter how badly I looked, had ever threatened to physically harm me, let alone go on stage to slap me in the face.
Chris Rock is a much bigger comedic talent than I could have ever hoped to be in the past. He’d been at it long enough to know the difference between dirtying up a joint and bringing down a house. Undoubtedly, a seasoned professional, he mastered the art of comebacks when he was met with boos from some jerks in the third row. What she may be less used to is being physically assaulted for a prank, particularly one her assailant initially laughed at.
To me, the entire scene was too awkward and awkward to stage. Why would the Academy want to script something so badly executed? However, what impressed me was Chris Rock’s response.
As soon as it happened, he expressed genuine shock at what had happened. When Will Smith angrily expressed his disgust, Rock calmly explained that what he said was meant as a harmless joke. When Smith countered, Rock calmly agreed to defuse hostilities. After calming himself down for a bit, he cracks a casual joke (that we have just witnessed the greatest moment in television history) and moves on to his presentation.
If anyone knows a joke when they see it, it is Chris Rock. He knew this wasn’t a joke and had the mind to not even try to make one. He kept his cool in tight quarters, which was all the more impressive that it was done, not only in front of many of his peers, but before a much wider audience of live television. He did not mention the incident again, and did not even press charges in the end.
Many observers who watched it unfold have proposed that Will Smith, as a much bigger man than Chris Rock, could seriously hurt the comics in what he does. Maybe, but while Smith may have taken home the Oscar that night, it was Chris Rock who, despite his smaller stature, emerged as the bigger man at the 2022 Academy Awards.
Not everybody hates Chris. I absolutely do not.
