Alonzo Bodden Calls Will Smith’s Oscars Slap “The Ultimate Outlier Situation” – Tribeca Festival

Addie Morfoot
·5 min read
2
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Almost three months after the Oscars, Will Smith’s on-stage slap of Chris Rock continues to spark a discussion.

Asked what the Oscar smack means for the future safety of comedians during a panel Thursday at Tribeca Festival, Alonzo Bodden said he isn’t worried.

More from Deadline

“I’m not going to get slapped on stage,” he said. “That (Will Smith slap) is the ultimate outlier situation. At the comedy clubs, we are still talking and still doing comedy, so nobody is going to a club and worried about that happening.”

Meanwhile, comedian-host-director W. Kamau Bell claimed a Black Carrot Top could never exist.

“You can be a white comedian and never talk about what’s going on in the world,” Bell told the audience. “But it’s pretty hard to be a Black comedian and never talk about what’s going on in the world without the crowd being like ‘Where’s this dude from?’ A Black Carrot Top would have to be like, ‘I know I’m making fun of these hangers, but also, Black Lives Matter.’ So, whether you want to or not, there’s pressure as a Black person in America if you have a platform. Sometimes you have to say something.”

. - Credit: Tribeca
. - Credit: Tribeca

Tribeca

Bell and Bodden were in Manhattan discussing the role and influence of Black comedians following the Tribeca world premiere of the first half of A&E Network’s two-part documentary event, Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution. Produced by Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat and Time Studios, the four-hour docu explores the progression of Black comedy in America and the comedians who have used pointed humor to expose, challenge and ridicule society’s injustices.

In the film’s prologue Hart states: “The role of a Black comedian today is not the same of yesterday. Your role is bigger than being funny.”

The series features interviews with Hart and Bell, as well as historians, critics, television producer Norman Lear, and a bevy of comedians, including Tiffany Haddish, Michael Che, Bodden Steve Harvey, Sherri Shepherd, Wayne Brady, Aisha Tyler, David Alan Grierand Amber Ruffin.

The first two hours of the docuseries traces the career and legacies of legendary comedians including Redd Foxx, Moms Mabley and Dick Gregory. Part-one ends in the early 1980s with Richard Pryor performing his most candid comedy, which would influence comedians for generations to come.

“Richard Pryor understood that to to be socially relevant you have to tell the truth,” Bodden told audience during a post-screening Q&A.

Bell and Bodden were joined onstage with Dick Gregory’s son Christian Gregory, Richard Pryor’s daughter Rain Pryor, co-directors Mario Diaz and Jessica Sherif and executive producer Loren Hammonds. Topics of conversation included the use of the “N-word,” Bill Cosby and the possibility of being slapped over a joke.

In the series, it’s revealed that Pryor stopped saying the “N-word” after a trip he took to Africa.

“I just went to Nigeria and was with an African tribe for seven days very intently,” Rain Pryor said. “What’s interesting to me is that I understand my dad’s need to remove (the N-word) from his vocabulary because you don’t see n*****s in Africa. There is no one looking over their shoulder waiting for someone to come up and arrest them…It’s a different kind of society and a different kind of outlook. So, for me, the word doesn’t sit for me in the way that it used to back in the 1970s and 1980s, where it kind of hit you when somebody said it. Now, I look at people who (use the word) and say, ‘Oh. They haven’t learned.’ It’s like they haven’t been educated on what Blackness is.”

Bell had a different take.

“Do I even think about the N-word?  No,” Bell said. “I wouldn’t say that I use it like salt and ketchup, but it’s like paprika – it’s not for everything, but it can make something taste really good. I will say that I think I say the N-word way more onstage than offstage.”

Christian Gregory added, “A word on its own shouldn’t have that much power. But trying to do away with it actually makes it stronger.”

To truly trace the evolution and social awakening of the courageous comedians who came before Bell, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, and Dave Chappelle meant that Diaz and Sherif had no choice but to include the pioneering but now disgraced entertainer Bill Cosby in Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution.

“We obviously wanted to touch on Cosby, but we also didn’t want to litigate what was going on today,” said Diaz. “We only wanted to place Cosby in that particular period (when he was successful) and talk about what he represented. We thought it was an integral part of the story.”

“A lot of discussion obviously was had about the best way to bring him to the story,” added Hammonds.

The doc transitions from Cosby’s heyday to his current status of accused predator with a cut to Bell describing his fondness for the comedian before discovering the multiple sexual assault accusations made against the comedian.

Bell, who directed the 2022 Showtime documentary series We Need to Talk About Cosby, said that the cut made him “half laugh.”

“I was saying what I was saying (in that interview) because I had probably just come from the edit on my (Cosby) project and (Diaz and Sherif) weren’t aware  that I was working on it at the time,”  said Bell.

Part-one of Right To Offend premieres on A&E on June 29. Part two will be released June 30.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.