I just rewatched it; here’s a transcript:
You know who’s got the hardest job tonight? Javier Bardem and his wife are both nominated. Now if she loses, he can’t win. He is praying that Will Smith wins. Like, “Please, Lord!” Jada, I love ya, GI Jane 2, can’t wait to see it.
It reads to me like a pretty direct shot at her acting or career, contrasting how Will never has to worry about Jada getting nominated at the same time as him, unlike poor Javier. Bonus mean points for including a bald crack.
No. It’s simply “Jada looks like Demi Moore in GI Jane.” Nothing more, nothing deeper. There are no layers to it.
I find it hard to see it as anything much beyond Rock “working the crowd”
100% this. It is a very simple joke not intended to be too serious or overanalyzed at all. It’s honestly pretty lame.
Ricky Gervais said, “I wouldn’t have made fun of her being bald. I would have mocked her having a boyfriend.”
If there are no layers why did the crowd boo? It seems like something else was going on there that the crowd picked up on.
That’s exactly it. When a person does a monologue at the Oscars (usually the host, at the beginning) there’s a lot of “so and so is here tonight” followed by a joke.
If it’s Leonardo Decaprio, the joke is that he dates young women. Sometimes, through, the joke will drift to something a little more insulting. But if you are trying to work your way through some bad issues or press, the absolute best way is to let yourself get made fun of for it (recall that Hugh Grant survived getting arrested with a hooker by going on the Tonight Show so that Jay Leno could ask “what the hell were you thinking?”)
If you’re famous, you roll with the ribbing. Only somebody with ultra think skin (cough Trump cough) would actually take a little roasting seriously. It’s good for your Q rating if you can take a joke - it makes you relatable and appear humble.
Yeah, I see your point. And maybe that’s what set Will off - is Jada nagging him about her lagging career?
What is Jada famous for without Will? I know she is in Matrix 2-4. I did see a Scream movie that she appeared in for 5 minutes tops.
What else is she really famous from on her own?
The last 3 seasons of A Different World, Menace II Society, A Low Down Dirty Shame, The Nutty Professor, and Set It Off would probably be her most recognizable work pre-marriage. She was fairly well known for a young Black actress.
I think you’re 100% right—instead of considering the matter many of them would automatically use the defense ‘you can’t understand unless you’re part of this world.’
It’s understandable that many people would reject even entertaining the idea that their instincts were, well, kind of fascist. Protecting the powerful. They wouldn’t accept that as a possibility.
(But we did see what we saw.)
I seem to remember a big time interval between the Javier Bardem joke and Jada. I did not connect the two at all.
There were no boos. I just listened to the recording again. There were no boos that I could hear. It was really a pretty inoffensive line.
Exactly.
It sounds like there were definite boos after the immediately laugh. To the point where Rock had to address it by saying “that was a nice one”!
I didn’t see it live, only from videos, so maybe that’s why there’s such a big disconnect between what I’m seeing and so many people confidently asserting 100% that no that can’t be right, it was only and solely a bald joke, and not even a timely one. Apparently Rock just dug up a 25-year-old reference for a complete non-sequitur insult?
Is this edited, or is this how it happened live? I don’t hear any jump cut in the audio…
If this is really how it happened live, to me, it seems clear as day – indisputable, even – that he is tying the Jada crack directly to the Javier Bardem observation. The fact that he has previously made a ‘Jada isn’t good enough for the Oscars’ joke makes it even more obvious.
But I’ve got at least three people now saying no I’m 100% wrong, that can’t possibly be it, he was only talking about her being bald, that’s it, nothing else. I feel like I’m in bizarro world.
I thought it was that he’s 57. Looking good Chris!
I misremembered, the gap is shorter than I thought. Not saying there is a connection but my observation wasn’t really on point.
While not an awards show, I remember seeing an episode of Letterman where Willis painted on chromakey green and they spent time showing video on his head. I can’t find the exact bit, but you can see it in this compilation: https://youtu.be/sqmGrSznfmc
Why wouldn’t anyone mock Willis? It’s not like he can SAY anything about it.
I vote Yes he did that. FWIW the instant it left his lips I knew what he was referring to but that just dates me.
So he is addressing Bardem’s table ribbing them for the competing-nominations thing. “He’s praying Will wins”.
That’s the cue that he next will address Smith’s table.
As he looks to Smith’s table, counts one beat and addresses them:
“Jada, love you, GI Jane II, can’t wait…”
You see, the rest of us feel like applying Occam’s Razor. To us it seems like you and others are overthinking it under the impression there must have been some specific premeditation and malice behind it, rather than Rock just deciding to do a throwaway gag based on similarity to an old Demi Moore character.
100% yes that is what he did.
Right. And even Rock knew it was a mild and dated reference. Which is what led to his incredulous “It was a GI Jane joke” to Smith after the slap. If it was a real roast Rock had so much more ammunition that he could have used and the skill to use it. It was a throwaway line.