A few gags had slipped into the public domain before the special but, mostly, Rock had managed to keep a cone of silence around the words he was going to use to strike back. Subsequently, there was so much hype and interest that Netflix turned it into an event. Selective Outrage was the global streamer’s very first live broadcast.
I didn’t watch it live last Sunday afternoon because of my kids, but I did watch it as soon as I’d tucked them into bed for the night. I’m no better than anybody else. I wanted to see what Chris Rock was gonna say.
But before he got to that we had to sit through close to an hour of his selective outrage on a wide net of random and, frankly, tired topics. He had bits about abortion, the Kardashians, the transgender community, losing half his money in his divorce and, yes, wokedom. He had a bit about Elon Musk’s ejaculation. He had a bit about pronouns (“I identify as ‘poor’. My pronoun is ‘broke’”) before segueing into a bit about how he’s so rich his daughter is a fencing champion who’s studying at culinary school in Paris. And he displayed a surprising amount of vitriol towards a retail chain that sells expensive yoga pants.
During all of this, he was animated. He prowled and hopped around the stage with visible pent-up energy, like the bubbles in a shaken-up can of soft drink just waiting to explode. He took potshots at Snoop and Jay-Z before quickly reeling them back and teasing the audience with what would become the show’s catchphrase, “The last thing I need is another mad rapper”, and then continuing on with some filler material about Meghan Markle.
It was clear Rock was angry. Outraged, one might say. But rather than landing precision strikes, his bits resembled a schoolyard fight with verbal jabs flailing aimlessly. A bit about his new life as a single man was not full of keen insight and funny revelations about his newfound circumstances, instead it became a chest-thumping piece of bravado about how he likes having sex with young women and older women and that he has paid for many abortions. Good for him, I guess.
Rock’s an undeniably great and talented comedian and there were good gags throughout, but there were also long stretches of misogyny and boredom.
Finally, he stepped into the ring for the main event. The energy in the room was palpable and Rock was visibly fizzing as he launched his counteroffensive. He was ready to rumble. So much so that he fluffed the beginning, ruining his own joke. But this didn’t slow him down. Indeed, he barely missed a beat and in a lot of ways it made Netflix’s investment in the live stream worthwhile. This wasn’t polished, this was raw.
And so was Rock. He won global respect for his professional handling of the incident on Oscar’s night and for taking the higher road right after. Well, this was him taking a sharp turn off the high road to hoon straight down the low road at full speed. The gloves came off as he referenced “the entanglements” Smith’s wife had with other men, Smith’s bad movies, and how the bigger, stronger Smith taking his issues out on the one person he knew couldn’t fight back was a “bitch-a** move”.
It looked cathartic. In the special, Rock repeatedly said he wasn’t a victim but we all saw what happened. This was him fighting back in the one area he has the advantage over Smith; words. It was the bullied kid lashing out and taking the power back.
But was it funny? You know what? I don’t think that’s what Rock was swinging for.
