Name: Will Smith
Age: 54
Occupation: actor and former rapper
Last Seen: Hollywood
Bee-otched For: not taking a joke
When the Oscars were handed out recently, the theme was the word "Coda".
That word has several meanings. In the movies, it's "Child of Deaf Adults". The film - which took home three trophies including Best Picture - centers around high school senior Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), who has to choose between becoming a successful singer or helping her family's struggling fishing business. To make matters worse, Ruby is the only member of her family who can hear.
The other Oscars "Coda" received were for Best Adapted Screenplay (it's a remake of a 2014 French film "La Famille Bélier") and for Best Supporting Actor Troy Kotsur, who is the first deaf actor in history to win the Oscar in that category. His wife in the film, Marlee Matlin, also made Oscar history in 1986 as the first deaf woman to win Best Supporting Actress for "Children of a Lesser God".
Of course, the word "coda" also means something else: "the end".
During the Best Documentary ceremony, well, you know the story by now. Will Smith slapped the taste out of Chris Rock's mouth after Rock told Smith's wife, Jada, ""G.I. Jane 2", can't wait to see it!" Jada came to the Awards ceremony with very short hair brought on by hair loss from the disease Alopecia, which she's had since 2018.
Smith won the Best Actor Oscar for "King Richard", in which he portrayed Richard Williams, the father of tennis greats Serena and Venus. In his tear-filled acceptance speech, Smith talked about protecting his family. Allegedly after the bitch slap, Oscar officials told Smith to leave, but he refused.
Since the assault, Smith has apologized to Rock and he has resigned from the Academy. The Academy themselves investigated whether or not Smith should have been punished. Some argued that what Smith did is nothing compared to the actions of producer Harvey Weinstein and director Roman Polanski, and they still have their respective trophies. What Smith did that Sunday is now called by many Oscar's most-shocking moments, even more so than Marlon Brando's Oscar boycott, the streaker behind David Niven, and the fact that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway read the wrong envelope for Best Picture.
Well, because of Smith's slap, he's been banned from showing up at any Academy ceremony for the next decade. He can still be nominated for Oscars, but he cannot accept them in person.
Smith has long been targeted for having a two-faced image. On one side, he doesn't swear in his songs ("Blinker Bitch" is probably the most gangsta he ever got) and he only chooses movie roles where he's the good guy. But, he does have his narcissistic side, which was exposed at the Oscars.
The reason why Smith avoids profanity in his music is that his grandmother told him as a child that it's a sign of a feeble mind. It reminded me of a handwritten sign that a teacher at my old high school (that thankfully, I never had) put on his wall. It said, "Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly." I googled that quote, and it was said by Spencer W. Kimball, a former president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. However, scientists have proven that those who use profanity in everyday conversations are actually quite intelligent. So, who do you trust? Science or a cult leader?
People who tend to be G- or PG-rated in person tend to be something else in real life. Bill Cosby never used profanity in his routines and encouraged others like Eddie Murphy to follow his example. Well, look at what happened to him. Same with legendary Mexican comedian and actor Roberto Gomez Bolanos, aka "Chespirito" or "Little Shakespeare", the creator of long-running sitcoms like El Chavo Del Ocho (The Eight-Year-Old Boy) and El Chapulin Colorado (or The Red Cricket, who inspired Matt Groening to create "The Bumblebee Man" on The Simpsons). For decades, Chespirito told his fans that he would only perform family-friendly comedy. He was also an outspoken opponent of women's rights, especially abortion. Sad, considering that he made millions playing a poor homeless boy on Mexican TV for decades.
Well, after he died in 2014 at age 85, many of his former co-stars told the sad truth about Chespirito. One of them said that he constantly cheated on his wife with one of his co-stars. Another sad truth was that he was good pals with vicious dictators.
Of course, some comedians did well doing both adult humor for the grown-ups and kids stuff. George Carlin and Richard Pryor were fine examples and so was Bob Saget. I know. Comedy is going through hard times, especially with the death of Saget, Louie Anderson, and most recently, Gilbert Gottfried.
Sadly, comedy has long been under attack by those with little-to-no sense of humor. Personally, I think canceling one out may end up killing them. Look at Benny Hill, for example. From 1969 to 1989, his TV show was one of the most popular in England. However, both he and his show were canceled. Why? Because he was sure to load his program with sexy women, maybe of whom ended up becoming a huge punchline on the show. The 1980s were a tough time to be sexy in England thanks to the ultraconservative bullshit whose mantra was that sex was bad. When Hill's show was canceled, he fell into a deep depression. His show was his life since he never married, never drove a car and lived in a tiny apartment despite being a millionaire multiple times over. He was nothing without his show. It might explain why he was only 68 when he died. Since his death, allegedly, his old shows have been rarely re-run in England. As a matter of fact, Antenna TV recently picked up old episodes of the program for Saturday nights. Years ago, I had a cousin who dated a British woman. I asked her if she ever heard of or watched Benny Hill. She heard of him, but never saw an episode.
In my honest opinion, comedy is under attack, and the people who attack it are egomaniacal, narcissistic pricks like Smith. If he had a brain, Smith should have sat on his punk ass when Rock joked about his wife. When he accepted his Oscar, Smith should have said in his speech that Jada has Alopecia and Rock should have apologized. But, no. Smith acted like an asshole and attacked Rock for no good reason.
The question is did Rock know about Jada's Alopecia? Folks, joking about someone's disability without that person making the joke knowing about it is nothing new. Just ask Mel Brooks.
In the 1960s, Brooks was a celebrity guest on an NBC game show, Eye Guess, starring Bill Cullen. During a break, Cullen got up from his podium and started walking. Brooks noticed that Cullen walked very funny, so he followed him, imitating his walk. The show's other celebrity guest, actress Julia Meade, told Mel, "STOP! HE'S CRIPPLED!" Little did Brooks know at the time that Cullen was indeed crippled from polio in his childhood. Like many old-school TV folks, Cullen was an old radio guy. But when he made it to TV, producers like Mark Goodson from The Price is Right worked diligently to hide Cullen's disability with sets designed where he could sit and walk with minimal distance. Of course, it was Brooks who gave us "Blazing Saddles", one of the funniest movies of all time. Obviously, if it was made today, Brooks would be looked upon as the Antichrist.
Since his slap, several projects Smith was working on have been delayed or canceled. Whether people will forgive him is up to them and the situation itself. Look at Mel Gibson. Granted, his "The Passion of the Christ" banked over $600 million at the box office. But, it was when he jumped the shark, especially for profiting from Jesus. Since then, Gibson's career has fallen significantly, especially when made derogatory remarks against Jews and blacks. His latest film, "Father Stu", in which he supports Mark Wahlberg, has bombed at the box office.
If Smith needs to learn a lesson, it's the fact that this is a free country, and people are allowed to say whatever they want about certain people. I started this very website over 20 years ago because I lived in northern Michigan, where I didn't fit in. Same with too many other teens at the time. I was a rock music guy, but the only radio stations in town catered to baby boomers. I know, a lot has changed, both positively and negatively. I made attacks against most of the shitty radio stations up north. Some cleaned their act, but others were a different story.
Radio is like every other business. The listeners are the boss. You piss them off and they ain't coming back. I've griped about radio bosses in both big cities and small markets. I've lauded some for caring about their listeners and employees and I've spoken my piece about those who chase away both. And in 20-plus years of blogging, I've gotten one cease and desist notice.
This particular asshole purchased a well-respected 100,000-watt FM station in northern Michigan and a few other minor signals over 20 years ago. He bought some old buildings in downtown Traverse City, demolished them, told people that he was going to build a retail/living/office complex, feuded with the city over building height, abandoned the project, and slapped a $5 million for sale sign on his giant hole. Obviously, the economy in Traverse City was horrible in the aughts and there were no takers. The property was an eyesore. Thankfully, after nearly a decade, the city caved in and forced him to sell the property. He settled for $2 million.
Over the years, he was extremely abusive and neglectful. He would throw staplers and even computer monitors at people. His employees' paychecks would bounce and they would quit on the spot. One even successfully sued him for dishonoring his contract. Even the building that housed his stations fell into disrepair and on one cold day, a pipe busted, flooding the studio. Allegedly, everything had to be tossed and now uses barebones equipment to stay on the air.
He allegedly even harrassed business owners when he converted his 100,000-watt flamethrower to an HD station. He wanted all electronics shops to sell tabletop HD radios. Well, they ended up sitting on store shelves, collecting dust.
The threats and bullying took their toll on him. Nobody wanted to work for him or do business with his companies. He dodged paying his taxes and even lost the transmitter site for his biggest station in a sheriff's sale. The people who bought that tower wanted to help him by operating his properties. Well, that came to a halt when they moved one of his stations to their site without FCC approval and he was the one who got the fine. Thus, it started a year-long back-and-forth between him and the owners of his transmitter site. He got the site back and everything's hunky-dory... kinda.
Now, this assclown is allegedly not doing well health-wise. He had a major heart attack a few years ago. He should sell off his stations to somebody who is actually passionate about building something successful instead of wasting 100,000 watts. Right now, that very station he bought for over $3 million is now airing a canned oldies format with no local staff and unlike most radio stations, it has no website, no streaming, and no social media. In its last rating book as an AC, it barely had one share in the ratings.
Of course, I should have given this asshole BOTD honors multiple times. But, I didn't. Why? Sadly, he C&D'd me many years ago because I didn't choose my friends wisely. I became acquainted with a former Grand Rapids DJ who pretended to like me, but, he hated my guts for being a broke liberal Howard Stern fan. He bought a company that made newsletters for country music stations and wanted this asshole to be one of his clients. Well, he tried to sweeten the deal by giving the asshole my now-former address and phone number. Thanks to him, that station owner left me a message on my voice-mail and even sent me an email that I had 24 hours to remove all references to him, his stations, and even his family. He even wanted me to apologize to him over the phone. I got his voice mail.
When he converted his 100,000-watt FM to HD, I wrote about him on a popular media message board. Lo and behold, another loser had to snitch to him. He wrote to me that I better take it off because he accepted my apology. REALLY?!? He NEVER told me he did. So, I sent him a letter saying that I've blasted other radio bosses and they NEVER C&D'd me because they don't care. PERIOD. Thankfully, it was the end of that.
As I mentioned, karma hit that asshole hard. As a matter of fact, he had to recently admit that one of his northern Michigan stations had been silent for over two years because he didn't pay his station's tower's owner - who owned the station himself in the 1990s - any rent. So, he ratted him to the FCC.
As for the fat fuck who ratted me to him, payback became a bitch. Tired of living with a fat prick who refused to get a real job, sat around all day being an internet troll, and owed people lots of money, his wife left him shortly thereafter. He did remarry, but apparently, his current wife "owns" his current business venture.
Payback is a bitch. Nobody wants to do business with an asshole whose life revolves around misleading and gaslighting others. Do that and karma will cut you down. HARD.
The same goes with Will Smith, who can't accept criticism like a pro. Not only that, Jada cheated on him, but he forgave her. Cuckold son of a bitch.
The only people who can truly judge him are his fans. If Morgan Wallen's fans can forgive him for being a racist and if Chris Brown's fans can forgive him for beating the shit out of Rihanna, maybe Will Smith can be forgiven. However, he needs to realize that if you're being mocked by a comic, it should be an honor. But, since he can't take a joke, I won't shed a tear if he disappeared for good.
It's up to us if we want him shaved from our lives.
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