Chris Rock is not over ‘The Slap’ and in his latest show, he let Will Smith know : NPR

Turns out Chris Rock is still very angry at Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.

“His wife screwed her son’s boyfriend…she hurt him a lot more than she did me,” Rock said of Will Smith during his live standup special for Netflix from Baltimore on Saturday night. Selective outrage.

The final eight minutes of the special focused on Rock’s reaction to Smith slapping him onstage at last year’s Academy Awards, with the comedian venting a barrage of expletives and bile while claiming the attack was the actor’s reaction to all the criticism he received for accepting his wife’s very public affair.

“Everyone called that man a B—-,” Rock added of Smith, who is more physically imposing than him. “They called his wife a predator… And who did he hit? Me! A n—- he knows he can hit [up].”

Rock’s outrage centered on the Smiths

The banter came to a head when Rock finally told his side of the story, accusing Smith of engaging in “selective outrage” by getting angry at him instead of the woman who cheated on him.

In fact, the comic was so excited that it screwed up a joke, saying Jada initially wanted him to stop hosting the 2016 Oscars because Will wasn’t nominated emancipation (The movie was actually concussionone of the omissions that fed the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite).

“She said, ‘He should quit because Will wasn’t nominated,'” added Rock. “So I’m joking about it a bit… That’s how it is. Eventually he got the punchline out: “She said a grown man should quit his job because [her husband] was not nominated concussion. And then this n—- gives me a concussion.”

Rock also said he was once a big Smith fan, but the slap in the face prompted him to watch the actor’s films, such as his Civil War-era drama emancipation, completely different. “Now I’m looking emancipation just to see him get cheered on,” the comic added. “Fired me for Massah!”

Ahead of Saturday night, it appeared Smith had mostly climbed out of the PR hole he’d dug for himself by slapping Rock and issuing multiple public apologies while admitting the comedian hadn’t responded to his attempts to shake hands to reach. One reason Smith might have been able to rebuild his image a bit is that Rock didn’t speak publicly about the incident — so the guy who was hit didn’t give his perspective.

Until now.

Rock insisted he wasn’t a victim, despite being beaten by a much larger man live on international television – which unfortunately implied the label could be somewhat shameful, while linking to a tirade he launched earlier in the night and insisted that too many people were attracting attention by unfairly posing as victims.

“I’m not a victim, baby … you’ll never see me cry on Oprah or Gayle,” the comic said. “I have this punch like [champion boxer Manny] Pacquiao.”

He may not have been crying, but Rock’s anger at the incident seemed fresh as if it had happened just last week. “People are [asking me] ‘Did it hurt?’” Rock said in disbelief. “It still hurts.”

And his last observation: He didn’t fight Smith because of a lesson his parents taught him: “Don’t fight in front of white people!”

Funny, but less than groundbreaking

It was a dramatic ending to a stand-up special that often felt less groundbreaking than the hype around it suggested. For an hour, Rock talked about a range of topics, some of which felt like they could have come from special years – including jokes about the Kardashians, OJ Simpson and Meghan Markle.

Some jokes just felt a bit odd — like the lawsuit about selective outrage from people who dance to Michael Jackson songs but don’t play songs by R. Kelly, who — unlike Jackson — is alive and actually has a sex crimes conviction in court .

Portions of the special seemed calibrated to tweak stereotypical liberal sensibilities, with Rock insisting, “Anyone who says words hurt has never been slapped in the face.” And jokes about how a “guard trap” works; If “someone wants your job, they’ll just wait for you to say a stupid s—.”

On abortion: “Women should have the right to kill a baby until it is four years old.” As a divorced single dating younger women: “I didn’t get rich and stay in shape to talk to Anita Baker. I’m trying to f… Doja Cat.” Why the power of female beauty gives her dominance over men: “Beyonce is so good, if she worked at Burger King, she could marry Jay-Z. If Jay-Z worked at Burger King right now…”

Rock strutted the stage with the energy and practiced cool of a longtime standup comedy legend — even while admitting he kicked his own daughter out of a high school to teach her a lesson and claiming that she, his ex -wife and her attorney probably found out he had asked the school to expel her from school by watching the Netflix special.

Comedy about a man who has been rich and famous for a while

As Rock is a comedy professional, much of the special was entertaining and some of it poignant, including his reflections on having a mother who grew up separated and now able to visit her granddaughter who is studying at a culinary school in France. I also liked his observation that the January 6 riots were “white men trying to overthrow the government…that they (already) lead”.

But some of it also felt like the kind of comedy one might expect from a man who has been rich and famous for so long that his view of the world has been clouded by the bubble of privilege he lives in (eg Rock’s version of the tired “my pronouns are” joke is that he describes himself as poor despite his wealth, and his pronoun is “broke”.)

It didn’t help that Netflix over-did the show with both pre- and post-concert specials that felt a little tedious. The specials, hosted by Ronny Chieng, David Spade and Dana Carvey, featured countless appearances from celebrities including Bono (vocals Jailhouse Rock before Rocks Show How To Do It), Rosie Perez, Matthew McConaughey, Arsenio Hall, Leslie Jones, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and more.

They put on the kind of happy performance that Rock himself would probably have gored if he had been forced to stick it out.

And for this comedy fanatic who remembers the moment Rock’s groundbreaking standup specials for HBO redefined his career and the world of comedy, Saturday night’s special was sad testament to the distance between a brash young comedian , trying to make a name for himself, and a seasoned pro who knows how to work the space, even if he may not have that much say.