I watched Wednesday night’s Daily Show last night - Jon Stewart interviewed Chris Rock to publicize Rock’s new movie, 2 Days in New York - which was written, directed by and costars Julie Delpy, an outspoken, socially and politically active French actress.
Stewart asked Rock how he got the part and Rock basically said “she just called me - and when a hot white French chick with a nice, big ass calls you about a part, you say yes.” It wasn’t quite worded that way, but they went back and forth a few times chuckling about it, so the basic intention was clear.
I was just immediately struck by how Julie Delpy would’ve had to have looked at that really negatively…it is just so different from how she portrays herself…just seemed like a disrespectful choice on Rock’s part, but perhaps I am overthinking this - I mean, after all, she *is *a hot white French chick with a nice, big ass…:dubious:
I got the impression that while spending time together shooting the film, Chris and Julie did a lot of joking about her “fat white ass” and she found it to be charming/endearing and she’s cool with it and that’s why he felt cool about mentioning it in an interview like that.
A lot of comedians try to push the boundaries on The Daily Show, just because they know they can. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes they’re just amusing themselves. This time they were amusing themselves more. Not a big deal to me.
I will defend Chris Rock as being funny, though. His breakthrough concert/album Bigger and Blacker was exceptional. Never Scared and Kill the Messenger were almost as good. Those were miles above any of his contemporaries. Maybe Lewis Black on a peak day came close, but I saw his tour a couple of months ago and it was funny all the way through but not White Album peak. I’d still put Rock as the top comedian of this generation.
Well for the first 1/2 of his career his entire act was telling us how badly african americans behave with the constantly repeated phrase…
“Only a n****r will do X!”
then he creatively switched it up to tell us how terrible white people are with…
“X is horrible - but it’s all right, 'cause it’s all WHITE!”
Oddly enough his act never combined the two but always chose one side to blame for all the world’s problems. If you’re only seen him once or twice I can see how he’d come off as a racist prick.
I’m not a big fan of his work, but what has he done that is particularly assholic?
The “nigger vs. black person” schtick constituted a single bit in an otherwise lengthy set. If you’re really shocked by a black comedian making jokes about race relations then I think you haven’t been paying much attention over the past 40 years.
I was thinking something like this, or at least that they had become chummy enough that he thought Delpy would laugh about it, because otherwise it did seem sorta crass.
