In most cases I’m able and willing to separate real life transgressions from the art. I still think Cosby’s stand up is funny, Polanski has some amazing films and Nordberg is still hilarious. I was never all that into Allen’s films. Yeah he kind of creeps me out, but I’m not convinced he belongs in this kind of company.
I still listen to Michael Jackson and Gary Glitter. I don’t see that changing soon.
Politics is a bit trickier but, if I can watch Heston, I can handle the rest. I was watching Deadly Friend recently and I did chuckle at the interview bonus feature knowing she’s a crazy person now.
I do admittedly have a double standard though. I won’t eat at Chik Fil A and I stopped drinking Bulleit bourbon.

I can't understand the ease of accepting Mel Gibson just because "he was drunk" when he said those things.
The thing about being drunk is that you often say things you really mean but don't otherwise say when sober. When I've been drinking I'll swear a bit, especially if playing Mario Kart, but it's just standard swearing, no slurs or anything. And I'm also more likely to tell people I like them and want to be their friends (I'm painfully shy otherwise).

If you say terrible things about minorities and ethnicities and whatnot when you're drunk, that just means that's how you really fell about those people but it's sobriety keeping your mouth shut. Ergo, that tells me Mel Gibson is deep down a racist piece of shit.

Cosby, it's hard thing for me to get over what he's done just because his comedy stuff was funny, mainly because most of his comedy stuff was about family and being a serial rapist kinda disqualifies you from being considered a family man.

Michael Jackson - I've never seen an allegation from any of the parties involved that really stands up to any scrutiny. I think he was deeply mentally ill but from the fame and pressure of being a performer, and having his childhood taken away by having to perform from such a young age. And, to be perfectly honest, very little of his material has aged well for me.


And I'll reiterate, that it's absolutely absurd to be listing Will Smith in with some of these others like Polanski especially. When will his Oscar's be rescinded for his sexual abuse of a 13 yo girl? The fact that his crimes have been public knowledge for decades with nothing done to him and Smith is getting piled on in under a few weeks kinda points to there being some kind of other factor. I just wonder what that could be.

I never cared for the Cosby show, but I grew up watching Fat Albert and Picture Pages. I could watch those again without any issues.

As a drunk I can say this is not always the case. Alcohol isn’t some magic truth serum.

And at the same time, I don't see how it can "magically" make somebody who is an awesome person that loves everybody into a raging anti-semite. That just doesn't track.

I don’t recall defending Mel Gibsons comments. Sober or otherwise. All I’m saying is this myth that when you’re intoxicated it brings out ones true self is preposterous.

Alcohol lowers your inhibitions. That's not a myth.

When your inhibitions are lowered, you say things you normally keep to yourself. Yes, everyone is different, but for someone to say that they're a perfectly cool human being sober but turn into a raging asshole when drunk doesn't make sense. Even people that are abusive assholes when drunk are still not great people when sober.

What about Jeffrey Jones? He was arrested for child pornography. Thought his career was over but was surprised he was on Deadwood.

For me there hasn’t really been anyone cancelled who I was a huge fan of. The only one kind of is Louis CK. I liked his stand-up and his show Louie on FX.

Some other big names like Cosby, Gibson, and Spacey I liked casually but never was a huge fan of any of them.

Not sure if you are refering to Smith's skin color, but I'm pretty sure it's not that. 20 years ago cancel culture just wasn't a thing, no MeToo or Time's Up either. The next time we will see Woody Allen or Roman Polanski at the Oscars, will be in the In Memoriam section.
I'm pretty sure Smith's ban will be suspended in a couple of years, but now the Academy had to make a strong statement against violence

And we're back to that word "violence". One man slapping another, is not violence. I've said already this was an extremely poor choice on the part of Smith, but the way people are pearl-clutching about this being so traumatizing is just amazing to me, and I'm the bleeding heart hippy-dippy liberal here. I don't believe in any kind of corporal punishment against kids, domestic abuse of any kind is not acceptable - but one man standing up to another in defense of his wife is not the same thing and the attempts to paint this as some kind of horrific thing is laughable. The only thing that The Academy is mad about is that somebody publicly "disturbed the peace" of their little ceremony and for that he has to be punished. All the shit that Polanski, Gibson, whoever else did, was always somewhere else. It wasn't on their precious show, so it's not as real to them.

yep

I'm not one who has been categorizing this as 'horrific abuse' or clutching my pearls. (For the record, I don't think anyone really has been doing exactly that.) But this is kind of a hot take. If it's not violence, what is it? Reasoning? If Rock had punched Smith in retaliation, would you view that as an overreaction, or an in-kind response, and still no big deal? At what point would it become 'violence'?

Lots of places and ways to draw a line, but for this situation, I'll go with the victim presenting a reaction that would indicate they felt any lingering pain.

Certainly, but they, even the moderate ones, were/are fiscal and/or social conservatives, which is to me just irreconcilable with the image of pure kindness and generosity of spirit that Mr. Rogers represented. I am well aware that there are good-hearted, well-meaning people of a conservative persuasion (I have even personally known a few), but I never fail to be mystified by their political allegiances, because the proclamations and policy proposals put forth by conservative politicians are, by the very definition of "conservative", not imbued with beneficence or openness.
Of course it's violence. A slap is not quite equivalent to a punch or a kick, but it is most certainly physical abuse, and should be treated as such. It is the laying of hands on another in a way that is not loving or collegial. It's not a capital crime, and perhaps not even one that should have led to any jail time at all, but he should absolutely have been arrested and hauled out of there. You try walking around slapping people, and see how long it takes before you find yourself in cuffs.
As for defending his wife, at worst his wife was the butt of a joke that was in very mildly poor taste. Verbal derogation or effrontery never justifies physical assault, no matter how harsh. Had Rock approached her in a physically threatening manner, Smith would have been justified in neutralizing the threat.

That would presume then that one were privy to the victim's reasoning and could render judgement on its merit, and in this case, that a live telecast of an Oscars ceremony were comparable to everyday life.

One person striking another is violence, plain and simple. Is it the same as being stabbed? No, but to state that it's 'not violence' is glib.

Are you familiar with the concept that if we water down the meaning of a word, then the word loses its meaning when we need it?

There is a way to precisely and accurately describe what Smith did to Rock: he slapped him.

An open hand slap is a thing. People know what that is.

If I tell you that someone "struck" me. What does that mean? If I say Will Smith committed an "act of violence" at the Oscars, what does that mean?

The only reason to use a word like violence to describe a slap is to place the specific action in a nebulous realm where imagination and hyperbole can comingle to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Of course it is violence, it's not brutal or anything, but if you slap/beat/hit/kick and in some cases shove someone or through something at someone, it is violent. The chances of Chris Rock being injured where low to zero, but hitting someone is violent. Will Smith is a grown ass man and if he feld the need to defend his wife, who is all grown up herself, he could have walked up to Rock, told him to apologize and acutally would have looked cool, instead of making a fool out of his entire family.
And again, Polanski and Allen are cancelled in Hollywood, Will Smith is not, he's just the joke of the town for a while.

I struggle with this one as I hate rewarding bad behavior but movies and TV shows are so collaborative that the actions of one person shouldn't always negate the hard work of everyone else.

Cosby is easy to avoid because his movies are terrible and his TV show isn't on my radar anymore. No interest in watching his stand-up specials ever again (despite "Himself" being my favorite of all time...until it came out he was a serial rapist).

But I'll watch something like L.A. Confidential or Baby Driver even though Spacey is a monster because those movies aren't really about him. Same with OJ and the Naked Gun series. Or The Shield even though Michael Jace murdered his wife. And I'll be a Buffy/Angel/Firefly fan for life, despite Joss Whedon. Because those are all more than just those one aspects (Whedon is a bit tough to reconcile, actually but my fandom is so strong for those projects that it overcomes it).

But I have no interest in watching King Richard anytime soon because that movie is forever tainted by Smith's Oscar behavior. That's just too tough to ignore right now.

Parse on, my brother. Tis better to be right.

If I just slap my wife around every night with an open hand while yelling at her, what is it called? Not domestic violence apparently.

I’ll also be sure to correct her and tell her she’s watering down the meaning of the word by calling it domestic violence if she dares to talk back to me.

Would you describe what Smith did as slapping Rock around? I would not. He slapped him exactly once, and apparently not very hard.

But let's examine your situation. If your wife slapped you once, would you call that an act of domestic violence?

If every time a wife slaps her husband, men start calling the police and claiming to be victims of domestic abuse, doesn't that devalue the meaning of domestic violence? Isn't that what the whole concept of domestic violence had to overcome, that men beating their wives were just quarrels that got out of hand? Isn't it important and valuable for their to be an understanding that when a woman claims she has been abused that her husband was striking her with the intent to cause injury and pain, and that the term describes a serious situation?

That's what happened with the phrase Fake News. It actually meant lies being presented as facts. But then certain people co-opted the term to describe facts they didn't like hearing, and now it has no valuable meaning whatsoever.

I just challenge everyone to do this thought experiment.
If you had not seen the slap, or heard any description of the slap, and you heard that Will Smith "assaulted" Chris Rock, or you heard that Smith "committed an act of violence" against Rock, what would you imagine happened?
If your answer is: Smith slapped Rock's face, and Rock stood there and immediately shook it off, then hooray for you. You either have the best or lamest imagination in the world.

Oh, Count D., I'm taking your leftovers because I paid for the meal, and if you demur I'll slap the shit out of your face. You're okay with that, no?
Yes!
No!
Of course there are different gradients of violence and abuse. Slapping someone - as Smith slapped Rock, which was very hard - is not as serious as beating someone to within an inch of his/her life, but both are wrong and not defensible.

To argue a man slapping another man is somehow "not violence" is laughably inept. It's felonious assault. Period. To ascribe it to some troglodyte "Bro Code" alpha-wannabe take on violence is blindingly dismissive at best, incredibly stupid at worst.

It's the same logic that led generations of men to beat their wives by slapping them outright, because striking your wife with an open hand is somehow "respectably corrective". A closed fist was the dividing line between "husbandly duty" and "physical abuse". Shameful.

The undercurrent is that men should have a different metric for what constitutes violence towards them, and it's just macho, chauvinistic BS.

Toughen up, dudes! You weak sister sissies!