You knew it was going to be Friday Real time At HBO, Bill Maher will cover what everyone in Hollywood is talking about. And he never did, starting from the top.
“Thank you all for coming and for keeping a brave face,” he said at the beginning of the month, adding that he knew everyone was still processing the biggest moment of the week. “To Will Smith: Stay strong and I’ve got your back.”
Maher stopped one step. “Fool. You’re a dick.”
That Will Smith joke set the tone for a run. “I am not here to insult Will Smith. He gets enough of it at home. “
Maher allowed that “every single person in America was talking sucking punches that were heard all over the world,” noting that “this whole ‘keep my wife’s name out of your mouth’ didn’t really work.”
The physical conflict between Smith and Rock was brief. “There was more action in three seconds than in three hours The power of the dog, “ Maher said, “Who would have thought that the movie would come out with all the buzz from the Oscars? GI Jane.
Maher became serious for a moment, noting that comparing a woman with Demi Moore to her hottest is not a big insult. “Alopecia is not leukemia,” he said. “I blame toxic femininity.”
Maher was above argument. Smith had a falling out with Liza Minelli, he claimed.
Of course, something else is going on in the world this week. “But we don’t care,” Maher said.
Laura Coates, CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst and Writer Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Justice And host of SiriusXM’s “The Laura Coates Show”; And Andrew Young, founder and author of the new political third party Forward Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy.
The Smith / Rock War was kept to the panelists, focusing on how liberal hypocrisy seemed like a big defeat at the Oscars.
Coates couldn’t believe that Smith received standing praise for winning the Best Actor award just minutes after his slap. “I thought, ‘Why is he there to get the prize?’ The former prosecutor was also surprised that Smith was allowed to hang around, saying that a civilian could have been dragged away if he had said, “Oh, no. I got the rest of my child’s soccer game.”
Young made a point about why Ken Smith was allowed to stay. “Part of that was Will Smith. Anyone else would have been kicked out. ”
Maher again turned his attention to the celebrities who admired Smith. “They always talk about micro-aggression,” Maher said. But “suddenly, they were OK with it.” It was a moment that “showed a broken morality,” he claimed.
Maher raises the issue that the Oscars “represent the pending. They are not connected to everyday people.” This year was about “disability, homosexuality, race”, he said, adding that it looks like it was all about the Oscars.
Young noted that the Democrat brand now represents “unintentional morality” in most parts of the United States, and said that when people find out during the campaign that he was a Democrat, how will they retreat.
The message from Smith’s standing ovation was that celebrity audiences have broadened the definition of violence. “Real violence? Nothing like that. Except when I feel it, it’s a great answer,” Maher said.
Coates called it “convenient compartmentalization.”
Maher agreed. Timothy Chalmet can wear a tuxedo without a shirt at the Oscars, “I don’t want to see Jonah Hill do it,” Maher said.
One point was left to be made. At the Vanity Fair party, he talked to an African-American friend about Maher, and someone in the crowd questioned what would have happened if Rock had fought back. Maher’s friend said, “She couldn’t. “He had the whole race on his shoulders.”
Earlier in the day, Maher had one-on-one interviews with Nicole Parlrath, former chief cyber security and digital intelligence reporter. New York Times And its author This is how they call me the end of the world: the cyber-weapons race. As the book’s title suggests, Pearlroth paints a grim picture of the United States’ lack of preparation for cyber warfare.
