Why It’s So Irresistible to Keep Talking About the Chris Rock-Will Smith Slap

Despite the fact that half the world had weighed in on Will Smith’s physical assault on Chris Rock, it’s irresistible for every sentient American who’s moderately glued into present-day culture to gobble up others’ opinions and form one of their own.

There are certain events like Brittany Spears’ conservatorship, the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting, or nearly every time Kanye West feuds with someone that enlivens our discourse and brings out the amateur pundit in us. But why?

Columbia University professor Sharon Marcus’s book “The Drama of Celebrity” posits that celebrities are a way for us to navigate our value system as a society. Rather than discussing actual people in our vicinity we can point to well-known figures to discuss what we like and don’t like about our collective selves from a distance.

In other words, Chris Rock and Will Smith hardly matter in our lives but the values in this particular conflict say everything and we keep wanting to say things about this conflict because it touches on so many issues:

1) The censuring or shaming of comedians in a society that also values freedom of speech
2) Freedom within a marriage to exist on its own terms and how that value has been tested with criticism of the Smiths’ unconventional marriage
3) The age-old question…