Dump Chris Rock - Draft DeGeneres
By Isaiah Z. Sterrett (02/17/05)
They really should have known it wasn’t going to work out when he suggested that “Ellen DeGeneres has crabs.” Sentiments like that are never positive.
Perhaps they also should have reviewed one of his lively comic routines before hiring him. Maybe then they would have learned that he’s a racist swine with a penchant for ideas that would make death row inmates blush.
Abortion in America is “beautiful”? Not good.
No serious person was really surprised to learn that Chris Rock believes only gays watch the Oscars. After his position on gay marriage was recently exposed—“f*** them fa**ots,” he explained politely, reportedly attempting to mock President Bush—nobody was really on the fence about Rock’s personal sensibilities toward homosexuality. Pretty soon he’ll be crooning Alger Hiss-style, calling Clint Eastwood a “queer.”
Or he may just prattle Mary Beth Cahill-style, calling Hilary Swank “fair game” because she won Best Actress a few years ago for playing a lesbian.
Swank deserved her “Boys Don’t Cry” statuette, just like she does this time for the emotional epic “Million Dollar Baby,” in which she portrays an American hero: a woman who saves her money for a noble goal, perseveres to become the best she can be, and even seeks to bring morality and independence to welfare-minded losers. Chris Rock disagrees. He thinks "Awards for art are f***ing idiotic." Rock is familiar with that particular phrase because it’s what everyone with an IQ higher than 12 thinks of his standup acts.
Only about ten people watched the Grammy Awards—Queen Latifah was tremendous, incidentally—but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apparently hasn’t yet processed that. They’re still so pleased that they were able to refrain from nominating Michael Moore that they’ve forgotten to plan a decent show. Hint to AMPAS: Chris Rock does not a family program make.
Admittedly, not everyone understands Rock to be a scumbucket. The New York Times likes to think of him as “probably the funniest and smartest comedian working today,” while Vanity Fair takes the simpler approach of labeling him “young, gifted, and the funniest man in America.”
Ray Richmond of the prestigious Hollywood Reporter feels sorry for the Oscars host. To Richmond, demeaning entire classes of people is how Rock “has been having fun” lately. All he’s done, argues Richmond, is “committed the sin of brutal honesty”—the way Ward Churchill did, no doubt. “The fact that Rock is the best thing that could happen to the way-too-full-of-its-bloated-sense-of-self-importance Academy Awards is undeniable,” he writes.
They’re a diverse crowd, these liberals.
Matt Drudge was the one to valiantly break the story on Rock’s pathetic existence, at least insofar as the impending Oscars are concerned. But we shouldn’t act like we’ve never heard of Rock. He’s been around for a long time. You can’t turn on cable without seeing him, and seeing him means hearing him. For anyone smart enough to immediately change the channel: listening to Rock is like listening to any racist, minus the nuance.
It will be interesting to see how Rock addresses the thousands of white people who will be sitting in the Oscars audience. If his plan involves the word “cracker,” as his live performances routinely do, I advise him to rethink.
Or if he plans to ridicule Colin Powell, also a hobby of his, he should abstain. That might make his viewers fraught.
What he should do is make silly, meaningless jokes about celebrity “scandals,” teasing Ben and J-Lo, Brad and Jen, maybe Barbara Stresiand for playing a seniors’ sex therapist in “Meet the Fockers.” What he shouldn’t do is social commentary. If the Academy Awards are only about fashion, as Rock has said, we don’t need to hear about Condi Rice or race relations. That’s not what the Oscars are for. The Oscars are about Joan Rivers, not Ariel Sharon.
Ellen DeGeneres doesn’t have crabs, in spite of Rock’s evident “joke.” What she has is one of the most popular daytime TV shows in the country. That’s because, unlike Mr. Rock, she doesn’t use her power to promote race-based hatred toward whites. She’s just funny. Too bad she’s not hosting the Oscars.
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