When a man resorts to violence to “defend the honor” of his wife or girlfriend from rude comments from another man, it’s worth asking if the violence really has anything to do with the woman in question.
Immediately after Will Smith whopped Chris Rock upside his head on live television Sunday night he yelled to Rock, who had made a quick joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, to “keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth.” But I don’t think the slap had much if anything to do with Rock mocking Pinkett Smiths hair — and implicitly the alopecia that led to her shaving her head in the first place.
No, I think what was really bothering Smith was the constant barrage of jokes about his admittedly complicated, and perhaps open, marriage. He was tired, I think, of being called a “cuck” because of his wife’s alleged infidelity (which may have only taken place during a time when the two were separated). After several jokes on the subject from the main stage at the Oscars, it seems he wanted to punch someone, and when Rock made his mean little joke he became that someone.
Smith wasn’t protecting his wife, who responded to the joke with an eye roll and nothing more; she didn’t tell him to do anything on her behalf. No, it looks to me like Smith was trying to assert his masculinity after having it questioned for years. Rock’s hair joke was the excuse, not the reason, for the slap. But if Smith hoped this show of “toxic masculinity” would convince people to stop calling him a “cuck” and worse, he was wrong.
Indeed, the insults flew faster than ever — especially among those who blame Pinkett Smith’s “infidelity” and Smith’s acquiescence to his alleged “cuckold” status, as the real reason for the slap. And that brings us to the Men’s Rights activists of Reddit, who came up with an explanation of events that is almost the polar opposite of mine — and in which Jada Pinkett Smith is the real villain.
Many of the commenters on the Men’s Rights subreddit took a perverse pleasure in calling Will Smith a “cuck,” a “simp” and a “punk ass bitch” who felt compelled to defend the honor of a woman who didn’t deserve either honor or a defense.
“What kind of man would try to defend his wife’s ‘honor’ when this same wife publicly cheats and humiliates him,” asked ninodelumbre.
I … think C. Rock was just trying to help W. Smith by showing him that he could do so much better then being attached to baldy the cheating wife.
“You cannot defend the honor of a woman who has none,” agreed asura227.
You accomplish nothing but making yourself look stupid. Will Smith – cuckold of the year 2022.
“I didn’t even realize they were still together,” snorted Jbr74.
I lost more respect for him staying with that sexually promiscuous, adulterating, philandering low-life piece of trash, gaslighting, narcissistic human being.
“She can take a dick but she can’t take a joke,” laughed kamenghost.
After quoting Smith, who yelled to Rock to “keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth,” TAPriceCTR declared “Man, keep other men’s cocks out of your wife’s damn mouth.”
Never mind that as far as we know, Jada had one relationship, with one man, during a time when she and Will were unofficially separated.
The cuck jokes never ended.
“Did Will get to fuck Jada last night, or only watch?” joked pushing-rope.
“Impotent cuckold rage was on full display,” added YourPillsAintWorkin.
Others argued that Smith was the real victim — of Pinkett Smith’s cuckolding.
After describing the two as “Hollywoods premier feminist couple” (?) , thread-starter NeoNotNeo declared that “Will proclaiming he was defending his family is BS. He hit a man because of his wife’s fragile ego.”
“I think Will Smith is pretty clearly in an abusive relationship.,” offered a DIY psychologist called Scrubadubdub82 in a comment that got nearly 300 upvotes.
I think this is what feminist abuse in a relationship looks like. Men being made to look foolish for the wife’s ego. Men feeling obligated to do their wife’s bidding. Being told you’re toxically masculine if you ever stand up for yourself, but told you’re not a real man if you ever let your wife have to deal with even the smallest slight herself.
One commenter wondered aloud why “a wealthy and successful male actor who has access to some of the most beautiful girls in the world [would] stay with an old bald female that cheats on him?”
“Don’t victim blame,” responded someone called Omz-bomz.”
There can be lots of reasons why.
Being in an abuse relationship doesn’t always allow you to take rational decitions, or to see how bad the situation really is. From what we know she is manipulative and abusive and gaslights him into thinking it’s his fault.
We know nothing of the sort. We know that their relationship is complicated, and that it has sometimes been bad. And that’s about it. But calling her all these things is classic Men’s Rights “activism” at its worst. Leave it to the MRAs to blame the only person in this triangular standoff who didn’t do anything wrong — just because she’s a woman with her own ideas how relationships should work.
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It’s been too long a week for me to be super into ripping into some logic debate, but Our New Friend / Possible Old Sock said:
Only to say very shortly thereafter in the same post:
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having standards, but I find it funny that everybody else having standards that are difficult to attain makes them moralizing babies, but this person having standards that nobody else can attain makes everybody else suck.
I might just be easily amused.
I especially like how our latest troll will declare that “MRAs have diversity of opinion, unlike you leftists who insist on a single allowed view,” then when diversity of opinion IN THIS VERY THREAD is pointed out to him, responds “all you’ve proven is that you’ll tear each other down.”
It’s such a beautiful example of bad faith, where facts and values change depending on the needs of the moment. Is A Thing good or bad? Depends on who is doing it – or who is doing it may depend on whether A Thing is good or bad, as with our troll’s “false flag” assertions about the Jan 6 insurrection attempt. Whatever gives “us good, them bad” at this moment is true, at least until someone pokes holes in it.
@Allandrel
You haven’t poke a hole in anything around here, accept for your own credibility. I could easily say that about pretty much everyone here who’s tried to argue against me. None of you have proven anything, you’re just shooting the shit, because you think that if you don’t take something seriously, then it’s not really serious. you’re just so used to the idea that you can just mock, scoff, and roll your eyes and everything will disappear. I’m trying to play ball here, but when I throw the ball to you, you just balance it on top of your heads and make some ridiculous face at the world.
And also this is the guy who’s so fucking fragile he thinks an open handed slap is “animalistic ” guess he never heard “talk shit get hit”
Hey squacks
How did you get to adult hood not knowing that if you insult someone wife you might get hit.
@Elaine the Witch
Close – I am only 2 years shy of being adult in my country. How did you get to adulthood without knowing how to use a question mark?
Hmmmmm…
@squack
Oh God. Another teenager that thinks he’s an adult. Are you also trans and pregnant from an mra that dipped. Go do your fucking home work or something. Go touch grass
chapeau, @Alan, for the exemplary pedagogy (and I can just imagine Scildfreja <3 enjoying those posts!)
h/t to everybody dealing with the latest spill of troll effluvia :-s
@Quack:
<headdesk>
… says the guy who doesn’t know how to use “accept” and “except”.
Well, I’ll be gosh-darned. It is Acid, back for another encore.
<eyeroll>
Jesus, this troll is boring. Hat tip to y’all for actually reading his crap; I stopped bothering after his last spew in the other thread.
It’s pathetically obvious bullshit, and I’m not sure which is more cringe: if he actually believes shit this dumb, or if he just thinks other people can’t see through it.
Either way, he’s proudly screaming his massive intellectual deficiencies to the world, like a monkey smearing itself with any turds it can get its hands on.
I was almost tempted to smack this squawking troll around a bit, but the rest of you are doing a good enough job, so I won’t bother wasting my time on him now.
@Cyborgette
Thanks for the info. So it’s worse than just a bit of hair loss on top of the head. Doesn’t sound fun.
@Elaine
That’s hilarious. Haven’t been paying much attention to the war lately, but I hope things keep going in favor of the Ukrainians, of course.
@Alan
Hah!
@GSS
All of this is sounding hilariously pathetic and I enjoy hearing it, but I’m still concerned about what the end result of all this is going to be. Let’s say the Ukrainians finally do drive off the Russians. What happens next? I can’t imagine “Putin on the Ritz” is going to take the blow to his ego very well. Even if he is “a loser and a wimp”, he hasn’t managed to stay in power this long by rolling over at the first sign of trouble.
So Squack thinks none of us have proven anything, and yet we haven’t seen anything more substantial than strutting and blustering from Squack. It’s pretty sad when you’re not sure if somebody like Squack is a teenager or just a Fox News viewer.
Well, on to better topics.
@Alan
I meant to tell you earlier I’ve been reading a book you might enjoy – The Bones of Avalon, by Phil Rickman. Deliciously written, focusing on Dr. John Dee undertaking a secret mission for the newly crowned Elizabeth, so you get plenty of Tudor politics (duh) but the story is also neatly salted with what would’ve been cutting-edge science to the Elizabethans.
@Vicky P
Why not both?
Sorry Squawk. The AV Club did your schtick far better 20 years ago.
0/10.
@ opposablethumbs
Aww, thank you. That’s the nicest compliment anyone could pay me.
@ Vicky P
Ooh, cheers for the recommend.
I’m woefully ignorant of Tudor history. For me, everything just gets so confusing after 410CE once the Romans left.
But I do find Dee interesting. A friend got me into this series of books; so that world is part of the background.
https://www.waterstones.com/author/c-j-sansom/93586
@Alan
Most of my Tudor history was picked up during my English Renaissance and Shakespeare classes, but I do have an interest in John Dee thanks to a book I read as a wee lass. It was a fictional account starting in the last days of Good Queen Bess’ reign and ending with the start of James I’s, and I was amazed when I learned Dr. Dee had been a real person.
@ Vicky P
Yeah, it’s amazing they didn’t burn him. He was quite important in the, highly efficient, Tudor intelligence service though; so that probably buys you a lot of leeway.
We do have some of his actual books in our library though. I should maybe have a read of them sometime.
https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/john-dee-s-books-middle-temple-library
@Alan
I am envious.
Our acid socks must be really dumb if he couldn’t tell “how did you get to adulthood” was a sarcastic statement and not a question. So I didn’t put a question mark on it.
@Elaine the Witch
A sarcastic question is still a question and needs a mark. Moreover, you must be really dumb if you think that nonverbal cues like intonation seamlessly transfer over to text. And don’t tell me to do my homework, you can’t just condescend to me like that. This is a motherfucking weekend, I am not wasting it on school work. I am my own man. And why are you calling me trans and saying that an MRA got me pregnant? I’m not trans and didn’t fuck an MRA. Did your husband’s slaps give you brain damage or something? Hag.
@squack
Aww what a big little boy you are acid. Nice try though
Yes kiddo. A spanking on the ass gave me brain damage. This is why you need to do your homework like mommy said too. And it’s really funny when you call a 23 year old a hag. But then again your like what? 16? 15? Come back to me when you do your own laundry and pay bills
Just to be nerdy, rhetorical questions don’t necessarily require a question mark. It’s also grammatically acceptable to use an exclamation mark or even just a full stop.
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/do-rhetorical-questions-need-a-question-mark
There used to be a specific punctuation mark for rhetorical questions; but that fell into disuse. Hence why it’s all now punctuation anarchy!!!
Is that what you want?/!/. (delete to taste)
@ Alan
Henry denham must have also been tired of dumbass teenagers trying to correct him