Nolte: Chris Rock’s Exemplary Behavior

Comedian Chris Rock did nothing to justify being assaulted by Will Smith, and, ever since, he’s done everything right.

For obvious reasons, most of us, including me, are focused on Will Smith’s reprehensible and ugly behavior at Sunday night’s basement-rated Oscar telecast. Lost in all this, though, is Chris Rock, whose behavior has been exemplary and worthy of praise.

Let’s start at what triggered the crybully Smith to make a world-class ass of himself in front of the whole world.

Rock was presenting the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature and riffed on Jada Pinkett Smith’s short haircut. “Jada, can’t wait for GI Jane 2,” was all Rock said. It was a nothing joke. If anything, it was a compliment. All the publicity around the original GI Jane (1997) was about how amazing star Demi Moore looked.

Well, at first, Will Smith laughed … at least until wife Jada, who had him cuckolded, rolled her eyes. Then, like he was starring in one of his own movies, Smith strolled across the stage and smacked the much small Rock across the face. Then Smith walked off the stage, sat back down, and started yelling at Rock:  “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth.”

Smith’s behavior went well beyond ugly. As I predicted the morning after, now that the shock of what happened is wearing off, people are beginning to process how ugly it was. And as the days tick by, Smith is finding himself in hotter and hotter water, which is what he deserves.

Physically assaulting someone over words is inexcusable. Physically assaulting a comedian for telling a joke, much less a nothing joke aimed at a powerful, superstar couple, is indefensible. Smacking a comedian for doing his job, what the Academy asked him to do, is psychotic and obscene.

But as I said above, let’s not allow Rock’s exemplary behavior to get lost in all this. Throughout this ugliness, Rock has proven to be a class act.

To begin with, watch the video of the slap. As Smith approaches him on the stage, Rock keeps his hands behind his back. Imagine the poise that move required. When you got this huge guy going off script and bearing down on you with a scowl on his face, your first instinct would be to put your hands up. But Rock, the consummate professional, must have known how that would look on worldwide TV. First off, he’d look chickenshit. Secondly, any movement he made might be blamed for provoking Smith.

After Smith assaults him, Rock’s hands almost go up, but he quickly replaces them behind his back. What’s more, you can tell by Rock’s stance, how he adjusts his feet after the smack, that he probably knows how to handle himself.

Then, as that entitled bully Smith stalks off the stage (as though Michael Bay’s filming him), Rock tells a joke that actually gets a laugh: “Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me!”

Still looking cool as they come, Rock is about to say something when Will Smith starts screaming from his seat, “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!”

Not sounding anything close to rattled, Rock responds: “Wow, dude, it was a GI Jane joke.”

Smith gets louder: “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!”

“I’m going to, okay?” Rock says… And then you can see his gears turning. One of the sharpest minds in the history of comedy has just been served one slow and over the plate — a cuckolded heckler shouting about keeping guys out of his wife’s mouth. Watch Rock at this moment. You can see him on the verge of laying out Will Smith like Sunday supper. He’s thisclose to verbally dropping the guy in front of the whole wide world… And then he wisely chooses not to. Instead, he says, “That was the greatest night in the history of television,” and goes on with the show.

Exemplary behavior.

Total pro.

Rock showed no aggression. He took the hit like a man. He kept his poise. He talked Smith down. He went on with the show. And Rock accomplished all of this knowing the world was watching.

How many people could do that?

I couldn’t.

Amazing.

Just amazing.

And in the days since, Rock’s been just as impressive. Why? Because he has said nothing. This is one of those situations where you are actually doing something by doing nothing. In a world filled with people cashing in on “muh trauma,” on their “victims” status, where everyone’s so eager to rush to social media to tell “their truth,” Rock is once again doing the classy thing… Not saying a word, not even in his own defense, not even as some left-wing woketards suggest or outright say he had it coming.

Through and through, Chris Rock has epitomized a class act, something I thought was extinct in modern show business.   

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.