Tagged: selective outrage


Chris Rock and Will Smith Can Afford Selective Outrage. The Rest of Us Can’t.

March 15, 2023

Chris Rock is taking full advantage of Will Smith’s inability to cope with his emotions, demonstrated when he slapped Rock during last year’s Oscars event. Almost a year later, Rock used the incident to both open and close his recent Netflix stand-up special, for which he was reportedly paid 40 million. There were moments of different comedic threads woven throughout the special, but a central focus was on that slap. Will Smith’s mistake may have made him the brunt of a lot of jokes and decreased his popularity in the short-term. This A-list actor, however, is not going to be canceled for life based on his lapse in effective emotion-coping.