In 2017, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings declared that he considered the streaming platform’s main competitor to be the human need for sleep. This mission to subsume all entertainment in existence under the big red N has now led the upstart studio to train its crosshairs on the meaty legacy target of Saturday Night Live. In hiring former SNL cast member Chris Rock to do live comedy on a Saturday night – his new standup special Selective Outrage being their first foray into non-pretaped content – Netflix has thrown down an unmistakable gauntlet, though it quickly becomes clear to anyone tuning in that there’s no revolution close at hand.
Watching 90 minutes of goofy sketches broken up by commercials doesn’t demand nearly as much of its viewership as doing the same with an uninterrupted hour of finely honed, politically charged monologuing. Where SNL has the informal atmosphere of a boozy party with friends as likely to crack up at their own antics as you are, Rock’s Baltimore set is by its nature a sit-and-listen affair.
How much any of that matters in a time when the idea of “ratings” factors in day-after streams and YouTube traffic requires an entirely separate conversation that Netflix will surely force with future projects much like this. But even if Rock’s latest work won’t instantaneously terraform the landscape of broadcasting, it still crackles with the funny ferocity expected of his taboo-prodding material. As a Black multimillionaire, as a middle-aged divorcee and especially as the recent recipient of a globally televised slap courtesy of Will Smith, he possesses a perspective in flux that imbues each check-in with an unpredictable live-wire energy teased by the ads touting the lack of a “bleep button”. (Perhaps another jab at those dinosaurs in terrestrial media?) Dave Chappelle and his many ideological kindreds have conditioned us to dread ageing male comedians eager to maintain their image as edgy, but Rock keeps his sights trained on worthy targets with punchlines that can leave a bruise.
Scientists should study what quirk of comedian DNA forces them to share their thoughts on transgender people, a minefield subject that Rock weighs in on to mercifully minor calamity. While shouting “Daddy got titties!” about Caitlyn Jenner isn’t quite the truth-to-power insight that gets Rock in top form – and the line about preferring trans women to “original recipe” in some circumstances, oy – most of this run makes transphobes the butt of the joke. He reserves his real contempt for the hypocrites produced by a cultural moment he sees as more concerned with projecting the appearance of virtue than actually practicing it. Sharpshooting at ethically produced yoga pants sold for a hundred bucks and people turning on R Kelly while continuing to play Michael Jackson, he spits the hottest vitriol at the surfeit of self-fashioned “victims”. One might brace for the worst, but Rock’s still got his head on straight, calling out the aggrieved white men who tried to overthrow the government that they run. “What kind of white Planet of the Apes shit was that?!” kills in the room.
Some of Rock’s best lines verge on the absurd, like the explanation that Elon Musk only “looks so weird” because he’s received so much fellatio that “his body has negative cum”. But he hits the height of his powers when getting real about race, his sharpest bit laying out his lack of sympathy for Meghan Markle. He was unmoved by her “complaining” in the Oprah interview, his rationale that she shouldn’t be so shocked by the prejudices of the royal family, “the Sugarhill Gang of racism”. (Another heater: “When did Snoop Dogg become Morgan Freeman?”) The privilege he resents most is his own, however; we hear lots and lots about the travails of the ultra-wealthy, from his spoiled kids to his house-taking ex-wife.
Though Rock smartly waits until the last section to address the elephant in the room, once he gets into the Will Smith controversy, he holds nothing back. He points out that everyone and their brother talked their smack about the open relationship with Jada, but Smith waited to reassert his masculinity until he could rough up a smaller, weaker man. Disses get dropped on Smith’s spotty screen work, from Concussion (“the biggest piece of shit ever!”) to Emancipation (“I watched [it] just to see him get whupped!”).
As in all things, Rock displays his trademark unequivocal boldness while he breaks down the lowdown dishonor of Smith’s behavior, more than enough to earn him another round in the ring. But calling it as he sees it has been Rock’s thing as long as he’s held a mic. He knows full well that shying away from the touchy topic was never an option, the only way to seize a narrative. With this unbowed hour, the man immortalized wincing in pain he claims he can still feel gets the upper hand.
