RANT: FEE-FI-FAUX-FUM!

    "Turn the other cheek, damn you!"

I WAS GLAD, THE OTHER DAY, TO HAVE A BRIEF RESPITE from all the fast-breaking and heart-breaking news coming out of war-torn Ukraine when not-so-fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith, slapped comedian Chris Rock on stage during the televised Academy Awards ceremony, creating a mega-hubbub in media circles. I didn’t watch the storied Oscars show the other week on the telly (why would I?) and subsequently missed the impromptu dust-up, but I noted the ensuing explosion of coverage and commentary surrounding “the slap heard round the world.” LIKE MOST PEOPLE, I had a WTF just happened?! moment but almost immediately had to seek shelter as analysis and theories* about how and why the incident occurred rained down like Stinger missiles across the airwaves and world-wide web. 

    "I'm so lonely! Please, hold me?"

Thank goodness for vacuous and empty entertainments to distract us in times like these! Who wants a dose of reality when we can mainline “Life in Fauxville” 24/7?

 

WELL, I WON’T GO ON TOO MUCH MORE about this silliness other than to quote Chris Hedges in a recent interview who said about Smith’s theatrical  hissy fit: “Who cares?” And I couldn’t agree more, though comedian Russell Brand has an interesting take on the matter, suggesting it was yet another example of how frayed and coming apart at the seams Western Civ has become, when even frivolous pop culture operations like the Oscars can’t keep up appearances—or as Brand wryly puts it: “Is the world falling apart before our very eyes, unable to sustain even the briefest spectacle of meaninglessness?” Good question. He goes on to make a larger point:

 

“…what I suppose I learned from that Oscars’ spectacle is that the reality we are being invited to live in, the cultural reality—because it’s not an objective thing. It’s a construct; you can see that, right? It’s falling apart. It’s falling apart because it needs to fall apart. It can’t even sustain itself using its own limited framework; it’s carving its own lapidary tombstone out before our eyes: ‘Here Lies Show business’. ‘Here Lies Glamour’. ‘Here Lies Spectacle and Distraction’. It’s over…something is over. We’re not talking about Cary Grant and the old days when everything was kind of urbane and sophisticated. It’s gone. It’s fallen apart. You can see it in music; you can see it in sport. You can see it in your own supermarket. The state of commercialism and commodification has reached a tipping point. It’s reached the point where it can’t sustain itself anymore….” (Transcript of Russell Brand YouTube podcast 3/29/22.)

 

ALL THAT FROM A SLAP! But Brand is right in saying that “something is over” and nearing its sell-by date. Entertainment is one area that reveals how many of the things we take for granted and consider necessary in our lives are, in fact, trivial, temporary and no more than the detritus of a day. How we entertain ourselves—what movies we watch, what books and newspapers we read, what art we admire, the sports we play; all the rest of the entertainments we program our days with—such occupations are  called into question, more often of late, and are being examined for their relevancy and durability. And while a silly, Hollywood sucker punch during a dull night of canned television is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, it’s yet another skin peeled off the onion, revealing how there is less reality to it than we imagined.

Food for thought and fodder for future discussions, by Jove!

Cheers, Jake.

__________________________

 

* My own take is that Will is "transitioning", and his treatments have been tampered with in a conspiracy between his wife and Hollywood studio execs worried about one of their “Stars” losing his male toxicity for future film roles. So, they dosed his Feminizing Hormone Therapy (FHT) meds with testosterone, hence the onstage “Roid-Rage”.  But, hey, that’s just my  take.

 

p.s. NTITAI, I wonder if there is a “G.I. Jane2” is in the works, but for Will/Wilma should my theories prove accurate? (Hope I don’t get smacked!)

  

[I should have posted this last week, but I sometimes get in a funk and DGAS! Sorry about that. Ed.]