As this post title says, I’m interested in exploring two questions [and already, I think ‘victim’ and ‘bully’, in general, is probably too reductive. But let’s explore in a semi-reductive way]:
1) Who is ‘the bully’?
2) What do you do with bullies?
- Who is the bully?
In this sense, I don’t mean of Will Smith or Chris Rock. I mean, in a broader sense.
Will has been being ‘bullied’ by the internet ever since it came out that his wife had slept with someone else. The internet just will not let him live it down, which as I’ve already stated seems very cruel.
Also, Chris Rock has been joking about Jada since the ’90s… There are rumors it’s because she wouldn’t date him. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know how much his jokes are ‘jokes’ [digs/cruelty wrapped in a way people will say she should laugh at], vs how many are true good-natured jokes.
But, there is conceivably a narrative where he is a bit of a bully to a woman for like 30 years.
*Usually* in narratives, people like it when people stand up to the bully, or when a ‘victim’ (or nerd, or whatever you want to call the person getting bullied) gets a big moment. [We’ll touch on this in a second.]
I think there is a possibility that Will could be viewed as someone who’s been bullied, perhaps standing up for someone who’d been bullied. So, I’m not saying we should label Chris Rock per se himself as a ‘bully’, but was he more of a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back to bullying Will Smith endured?
- What do you do with bullies?
And this is where we’ll pick up tomorrow!