THAT SLAP

I remember seeing LA LA LAND and finding it to be such an extraordinarily poignant reflection of my own Hollywood story. I moved to Los Angeles and met my wife. We both slummed it at half a dozen catering functions until, several months later, all the suffering paid off. I was asked to join a world-renown pop band and drink European lager with the lead singer, while my wife landed the starring role in a U.S. sitcom after being discovered in a queue at an Eagle Rock cannabis, coffee, and kittens cafe. Yes, we’re sell-outs. The Trump Insurrection opera I was writing got shelved, and my wife lost her position with the Flyover State Shakespeare Company. And for what? Seven million dollars? That’s before taxes too. What does $7million even buy in L.A. that doesn’t involve the immediate tearing down of a perfectly good mid-century home? It is even easier to tear down a reputation in this town. Such a fate awaits every American celebrity… even if their demise finally arrives in the form of being spoken ill of after they depart this world. Celebrities have it hard.

My mind is now unwinding itself from awards season. Learning that I will die five years before any of my friends who have won Oscars has added a new element to how one views privilege in America. You might have been surprised by ‘the slap’ that woke up the Academy Awards. It was even more shocking than Amy Schumer’s dissertation on bum action at the Britannia Awards. You may have been so appalled and heartbroken that you cried, tore your clothes, and screamed out to God, ‘How could he sully such a sacred night?’ Each of us mourned this other fall of man in our own way. To me, though, it was the death of something I had been wanting to kill for a long time: the myth that traditional Hollywood leading men are even remotely funny. Those selected at a young age to be lifted above all others so that they may complain at awards ceremonies about the terrible burdens and demons they’ve endured due to being ‘chosen’ are not known for their ability to take the piss out of themselves.

David Niven was funny. Richard Pryor was funny. Hugh Grant is funny. Is Will Smith funny? Humour, in fact, is an anti-American idea. To embrace it and, more importantly, learn how to wield it the way Chinese actors learn how to run up walls and fly across treetops – with seeming ease – means going rogue. America was founded by puritans who viewed humour and joy as a flippant two finger salute to the sacrifice made by Christ. I tend to fight back against the idea that God doesn’t have a sense of humour. Yet, he has denied Americans the essential trait required to be a light-hearted people: the ability to not take oneself too seriously. Divine irony?

I recall a UK CEO friend who hired a personal coach to teach him how to deal with American millennials. Watching him prod the little bears with British wit until they tugged at their locks of hair with shaking hands was an experience worthy of popcorn popping. How much longer until such ‘humour conflict’ results in a lawsuit that awards a monthly trauma payout? But back to Will Smith’s lack of will power…

In an age of inequity comparable to the end of the 19th Century, awards shows that reward exceedingly rich, famous, and beautiful people for playing pretend for a living is nothing short of anachronistic. These 20th Century red carpet evenings should be reconsidered, much like the royal tour. Some view the slap as being a flawed man’s plea for help. In a sense, Will Smith did exactly what he is supposed to do as an actor… keep the focus on him. Billions of people on this planet are now laser focused on the fresh prince. And the cry that one is privileged and in pain is as old as Hollywood itself. I just hope the establishment doesn’t rid the world of such tasteless displays of excess like the Academy Awards before I have the opportunity to win some sort of gong. (They’ve already sacrificed the Golden Globes, and with good reason.) I want those five extra years on this broken planet.