EagerBeaver said:
I watched the show and while I was startled by Penn's outburst (which was perhaps motivated by financial reasons, since he and Law were filming a movie together at the time), I was more shocked at Rock CONTINUALLY comparing Law to Tom Cruise and insinuating he was a "low rent" version of Tom Cruise. It was a gratuitous personal insult made OVER AND OVER throughout the show to the point where it got embarrassing. Penn obviously felt he needed to stop the bleeding for his then co-star. I did not consider this funny.
Well, when you pick Chris Rock to be your MC, that's what you get. Dark humour. Embarrassing people, mocking others, etc. Don't blame Chris Rock for this, since this is how he's made a living for the past 10 years or so. It'd be like having Don Rickles MC the Oscars. What kind of jokes do you think he'd be doing? He'd be doing his act, which is mocking & putting down people. That's what they're paid for & they can't be blamed for doing their schtick when this is what got them to the pinnacle of their profession.
As for what offended Penn in regards to Rock's comment about Law, the problem was that Penn (and i suppose yourself) were the only people in the auditorium & on the planet that didn't get Rock's comedy routine. At the time, Rock was in a monologue & stating that we don't have the movie stars today that we used to have back in the old days. Where are the Gables, Tracys, Flynns, Oliviers, Brandos & Bogarts today? He came up with a few examples such as Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino & Jack Nickolson (among a few)...he'd say something like "now, these are MOVIE STARS!" He then made the analogy to today's movie stars in order to prove his point (very correctly) and just threw some names out of the blue, and Jude Law's name (he named him since he was up for an Oscar at the time) was among them (among others). I'll bet you that even Jude Law didn't take offense & probably understood what Chris Rock was getting to. He wasn't saying that Jude Law was a bad actor or anything....he simply was making a point that movie stars today are not as well-known & idolized as the movie stars of the silver screen, other than a very small few.
Finally, i suppose that people who don't get Chris Rock or Jon Stewart's comedy says a lot more about themselves than about those two geniuses of comedy. Stewart's Daily Show on Comedy Central is one of the most watch comedy shows on tv & he's one of the most respected comedians today. He's helped create other stars of comedy such as Steve Karell & Stephen Colbert by giving them their start on his successful daily show. As for Chris Rock, i'm not a fan of his comedy, but that doesn't mean that he's not a great comedian. Hell, i still never miss an opportunity to catch Don Rickles when i can and many young people today think he's the guy from Three's Company.
