I Wish Someone Like Will Smith Stood Up For Me When I Was Being Made Fun Of

There’s comedy, there’s bad comedy, and there’s being an insensitive ass…

I never really wrote about this in public before. It’s something that I both care about and wish the world knew and did more about. The scars run deep, both literally and figuratively. I was born with cleft lip and palate and whether I liked it or not, it set the tone for the rest of my life. Seeing Will Smith’s reaction to Chris Rock’s “comedy” reference to alopecia, made me realise, no one ever stood up for me. Not when I was bullied, not when I was being made fun of. I had to suck it up and keep walking. As a child, as a teenager, and shit, even as a young adult. The cleftie in me never had an ally, but I think it’s time I speak up about it. Someone has to…

Disgraceful parenting?

I am no parent, so I will choose my words carefully and rely on, well, the parenting that I got. It wasn’t stellar by any means for a multitude of reasons, but dear mum and dad certainly tried to do their best and educate me on the various aspects of life. Heck, I am 36, and occasionally, they still take a stab at parenting because as they say, regardless of age, I am still their little boy. Fair enough.

Seeing, and hearing the words come out of Chris’ mouth, my first thought was, “who the fuck raised this guy? Wolves would do a better job at it.” My parents certainly didn’t teach me everything about the world, but by about the age of 6 or 7 I was already aware that making fun of people was frowned upon. In my early teens I also understood what cancer meant, and during my late teens I also got exposed to the medical term of “alopecia”. Of course, as a fairly well-read person, I was also aware that in certain cultures women being bald was the norm, and some chose it as a fashion statement, however altogether that was an incredibly small number of people compared to those dealing with cancer, alopecia and other diseases, illnesses, conditions, and disabilities. Therefore, it made a lot of sense to just blanket assume that a bald woman is highly likely dealing with something quite serious, and making a joke about it, making fun of it was considered an asshole move.

So, I’m going back to the question of who raised Chris? But of course not just him. The sheer number of people defending his joke is so high that it makes me wonder whether basic parenting is still a thing.

What kind of education did the last two generations get, and how are today’s kids and teens educated? And this is not even part of being politically correct, woke or whatever else people want to label these conversations with. To me, it’s as simple as not making a joke about a bald woman.

It’s a one-minute conversation between a parent and a child. It develops empathy. It turns a child into a considerate, civilised human being.

Education in shambles?

But of course, education at home isn’t the only education a child is supposed to get. Thank God for that because clearly that first line of defence against the most basic assholeism has already failed and royally so. Thank God we have schools. Or… do we?

Looking at the large sums of cash circulating in western education, the big names out there anywhere from Montessori to Harvard and Cambridge, you’d most definitely think that the education system, at least in the West is well-equipped to raise not just high-profile comedians but average Janes and Joes who know what’s funny and what isn’t. That it can raise generations that understand the difference between writing comedy and insults. To make the distinction between using words playfully and carefully.

You’d think that’s the case. Except it’s not. Chris proved it on stage, on camera, in front of the whole world. Chris proved that our second line of defence against stupidity, cruelty and just general lack of empathy has failed as well, and did so just as royally as parenting.

I know first-hand. I don’t victimise myself, but I have been the target of cruelty, ridicule, and offensive jokes most of my life because I am a “cleftie”. It took me two years of writing, and two sessions with a massive medical team to get rid of the emotial and mental pain and accept and celebrate myself, and understand the sheer complexity of the work doctors have done during my childhood and teenage years to get me to look the way I do.

And then comes Chris effin’ Rock and makes fun of someone who just like me is trying to accept and deal with a reality they cannot change. Clearly, not a single teacher ever taught him not to make fun of those less fortunate. Clearly, he has never seen a teacher stand up for the child who was being verbally abused for looking in a certain way, just like no teacher ever stood up for me in school. It wasn’t enough that I had to deal with rampant xenophobia much of my life, I had to deal with being called ugly and ape-like by my peers.

If education cannot get things as simple and as basic as this right, then what is the fucking point of all our schools?

Incompetent legal system?

Will’s reaction, on the other hand, is being labelled as a criminal act. An act of violence. Outside of context, I would agree. I am a pacifist after all, but put things into context, and it becomes less clear-cut. If a slap is a criminal offence, let me ask you, what is making fun of someone’s condition? What kind of asinine legal system doesn’t consider that a criminal offence?

If you ask me, getting a slap leaves less long-term scars than being made fun of repeatedly.

Being made fun of happens more often and acts as a constant reminder, and even the most stable individual when being made fun of for the same thing for the umpteenth time, no matter how much they worked on themselves, if even for a split second, they will get pulled back years, decades into a dark place they’ll need to find the strength to crawl back out of again. You also can’t avoid being made fun of. A slap, however, if you’re fast enough, you might just dodge it.

Again, I am not condoning violence, but I do applaud Will’s act of standing up for someone who was being made fun of, and while probably a lawsuit would have been a more appropriate reaction, the problem is: I struggle to believe that many courts of law would treat being made fun of in public a criminal offence, in which case how does one punish this crime that the current legal systems don’t really see as one? Suddenly, a public slap on the face doesn’t sound quite so out of place, does it? If I had done that to someone as a child, I know my father’s palm would have met my face in an instant, and he’s a pacifist too who never beat me. Me making fun of someone would have not been tolerated and punishment would have been swift.

Lack of intelligence in comedy?

They say, “It’s funny because it’s true.” — but that doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t think the current situation for instance in Ukraine is funny. Do you? It’s true, though, innit? Still not funny.

One of my all-time favourite — God rest his soul — comedians is Hofi Géza. Extremely intelligent comedian. He was doing standup in Eastern Europe way before standup was hip or even called standup, and did so risking his freedom every time he went on stage. He wrote comedy in a very unforgiving political climate. That required smarts. Yet, he never resorted to personal insults.

What I’ve learnt from most comedians over the years is that it’s OK to make fun of someone’s choices, style, habits, but it’s an insult to turn into comedy something they never had control over, something unfortunate that life dealt them. Just because something can be interpreted as funny by some, it doesn’t make it comedy material. A surprising number of comedians for instance use stuttering as a comedic effect. I find it disgusting. If that’s what a comedian has to resort to, to get some laughs, in my eyes, they’ve lost all respect. Long story short, you can’t just be a comedian, you also need to be intelligent.

I genuinely don’t mean to offend, but American comedy is particularly littered with, no, not comedians, let’s call them professional insulters.

There is a genuine lack of intelligent humour in comedy, and it’s pretty clear why. It works. People laugh. They laugh because they weren’t taught not to. Not at home, not in school. So, our dear comedians assume, it’s all good in the hood. Resorting to cheap jokes, making fun of people, even if in a clever way, is fine, and those who get offended just don’t get humour. Sure, blame the victim, right? That’s always the easy way out.

Clearly, educating ourselves and our children on the basics of certain conditions, the effects of chemotherapy and the likes is too much effort and will ruin comedy for all eternity.

Well, if comedy has to resort to making fun of bald women, the cleft palate, the Blind, the Deaf, the anyone who suffers with any condition visible or invisible, then fuck comedy, and fuck comedians, and thank you Will for standing up against assholes. I wish someone did that for me at least once during my life-time. Maybe we’d have fewer assholes running around pointing the finger at others and making faces. It’s unfortunate that it all ended in a slap, but at least the conversation has been started. Well done standing up. About time someone did.

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!