Chris Rock has had a great career of making us laugh for almost three decades. His work spans the likes of Saturday Night Live, film, his own talk show, a sitcom based on his younger years, and a number of stand-up comedy specials. At Comics Alive! we like to focus on stand-up, especially in cases where we feel that it showcases the very best a comedian has to offer.
Comedians often enjoy telling hard truths. Some find it difficult, and others find it rather easy. For Chris Rock, he finds a way to do it, make us laugh, and have us all begging for more. Rock has never had an issue with saying exactly what he means in a way that we can all understand. While he’s often controversial in what he talks about, he is not necessarily wrong in his observations.
Hard Truths
Black People vs. Ni**az (Bring the Pain – 1996)
This bit was a hard pill for many to swallow, especially in the early days of development. Trying to differentiate between two groups of the same culture without coming across as a complete monster and condemning the entire group is difficult to say the least.
What Rock was successful at with this bit was creating comedy around the differences between those that are considered normal, everyday representatives of a race and the ones that make a “bad name” for said group. The same could apply to White People vs. Trailer Trash for instance.
In essence, Rock is simply pointing out that the ignorance of not just the latter group but of those on the outside looking in, would be wrong to lump everyone together.
We NEED Bullies (Tamborine – 2018)
In yet another hard truth that most bleeding hearts can’t begin to fathom, Chris Rock points out how society has led to the ability for bullies such as Donald Trump to become president. And to do so without even an inkling of a logical policy or realistic promise to his constituents.
In our softened world, where everyone gets a participation trophy, and shaming someone is more shameful than anything else, a door that was locked with hugs and empathy was kicked clean off its hinges. A stage full of bureaucrats that happily waited their turn to spew out talking points couldn’t deal with an aggressive man from the business world that was more than willing to steamroll the competition.
People tend to forget that Trump easily won the Republican Primary and the General Election by being what most of us have not had to deal with since we were children – a big fat, loud mouthed bully. And those running against him forgot that the only thing that can take down a bully is his victims joining forces to take him down together.
My fear, as is the same with Rock, is that as we continue the charade that everyone is your friend, enemies don’t exist, and bullying and intimidation will cease if we just tell it to go away will result in the same outcome that we saw manifesting in the 2016 Presidential Election.
These are only two of the dozens, possibly hundreds of examples of Chris Rock’s true genius however, Comics Alive! strongly recommends watching all of Rock’s stand-up specials in order to truly understand exactly what makes him a comedy legend.
A few more great examples of Chris Rock’s genius:
Money’s in the Medicine – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7P4iFg048k
People Wanna Get High – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXxwOiOX0HM
Big Pharma – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQABSUtqoMc
Dead Frog also has a short list of some of his best quotes
Ceeyar 