Three ways to defend your wife’s “honor”

 

There were three interesting stories this past week, although it was only timely to write about one them. But then I got to thinking that there was a way to tie all three of them together, since they all involved a man’s wife under “threat,” and each approached the problem in different ways.

First let’s rehash what happened this Sunday at the 94^th Academy Awards ceremony. I have to admit that it’s been a long time since I gave a damn about the winners of the awards, since I generally don’t give a damn about contemporary actors or the movies they are in. The only contemporary films that interest me at all are those that challenge the usual self-serving, self-congratulatory politics; I mean, CODA won best picture over a much better film (in relative terms), The Power of the Dog, because it was politically correct for the Academy to check off its “feel good” list (a film about deaf people) and had a female in an improbable “hero” role. The contemporary films I tend to like are the ones hardly anyone in this country has seen (because they are not “politically correct”), like the 2018 film The Kindergarten Teacher starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, and it is that kind of contemporary film that actually has something real to say or isn’t afraid to challenge the senses that makes it into my film collection.

So although I didn’t bother to actually watch the show, it did make “news,” after Will Smith responded to a “joke” by Chris Rock by advancing to the stage and slapping him full in the face before a “shocked” audience that later gave him a standing ovation when he won the Best Actor Oscar and spilled fake tears, probably in relief he wasn’t arrested or escorted out of the building as he should have been. While many people on social media defended Smith initially, gradually the realization grew that Smith had done something shameful.

First of all, I would say that 99 percent of the people in this country have no idea what Rock’s “joke” was about. On the face of it, he merely said that he couldn’t wait to see Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett, in the film GI Jane 2, which will be like the first one—a feminist fantasia about women  as fighting machines. Well maybe, but they still are banned from serving in ground combat units, so this is will be another film that fits in the realm of cartoon superheroes. Here we see Smith laughing when Rock tells the supposed “insinuation’ about Pinkett’s lack of hair:

 

  

Then what he does when he notices his wife isn’t laughing, and he’s probably going to be in for it later if he doesn’t “do something”:

 

Mr. Tough Guy. And here we see Smith delivering embarrassing f-bombs, as Pinkett (off camera) doesn’t attempt to restrain him (we are now learning that Pinkett was seen laughing with Smith's assault):

 

 

At least Rock kept his cool. After the fact, we are learning just how out-of-control and unjustified Smith’s reaction (out of “love” he said) was; it is unlikely that Rock, who his defenders say is not a malicious guy (he just tells the truth, such as why Smith was paid $20 million for that awful Wild Wild West reboot) and was not, like almost everyone else in the world, aware of Pinkettt’s hair issues (and it is she who has made it an "issue," after all) when shaved heads are not an unknown fashion "statement" among black women; if there was any “joke” intended, it was merely a comment on seeming to be remaining in “character” with the hairless role she played in Jane. Personally, I think both Smith and his wife are jerks (well, he’s one for sure, and she for marrying one); in regard to Smith, when his name comes up I can only think of the disgust I feel over that racist The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme.

Of course there is plenty of room for jerks in politics. Take for example Sen. Ted Cruz. I mean, are not his constituents in Texas ashamed that they voted for this guy yet? But then again, that is like asking if Marjorie Taylor Greene’s constituents are ashamed by her antics. Cruz spent his time making ridiculous attacks on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson concerning “Critical Race Theory”—which of course only demonstrated why race is still a problem in this country. No need for “dog whistles”; the GOP far-right unashamedly just goes straight into the gutter with their racist constituents.  After it was over, her husband, Patrick Graves Jackson, a surgeon, kept a grave face and his cool; there was no need to sink to their level, everyone knows what they are. After the disgusting show trial hearing, this reaction spoke much more deeply than Smith’s hyper-masculine “chivalry”:

 

 

But there is another way to respond to attacks on your wife: you can hide behind her skirts, like Clarence Thomas. One of the most appalling discoveries from the January 6 Committee investigation is that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas isn’t your average consort of a Supreme Court justice, but an extreme-right, QAnon conspiracy fanatic that Mark Meadows didn’t mind exposing when he turned over his text messages to the committee, since “Ginni” makes him look like a relative island of sanity. “Ginni” attended the rally that eventually made its way to the Capitol Building, but she apparently got cold feet along the way.

But “Ginni” wasn’t finished. While she was not physically present during the insurrection, she certainly was there in “spirit.”  We are told that she sent text messages imploring Meadows to do something to “stop the steal,” including providing Sidney Powell’s conspiracy theories as justification, and passing on a “news flash” that the “Biden Crime Family” was arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay. Yeah, that crazy. When Meadows “encouraged” her to “keep fighting,” there came this interesting response:

Thank you!! Needed that! This plus a conversation with my best friend just now… I will try to keep holding on. America is worth it!

“Ginni’s” best friend is, of course, her husband, and she his as they have repeatedly told the world whenever the opportunity arises. Such good friends are they that Thomas has been quoted as saying that “I can rant with her.” Now just think about that for a moment: it’s bad enough that Thomas was unqualified both temperamentally and intellectually—and if you believe Anita Hill, morally—for the position of Supreme Court justice. Given that he was replacing an icon of the civil rights movement, it was how many ways you want to go insulting to Thurgood Marshall’s memory and what he stood for. It disturbs the mind, then, what he “rants” about with a crazed spouse; does that mean he is crazed too?

Wouldn’t we like to know what “Ginni’s” best friend had to say about overturning the election by insurrection that made his wife feel “good” about it, since he apparently gave her encouragement to act like a crazed psychopath spewing outrageous nonsense. This is the same justice who the only one to vote against turning over National Archive documents to the January 6 committee. Does Thomas believe that there are more incriminating documents about him and his wife in them?

There are now calls for Thomas to resign or be impeached if more evidence emerges that he supported the overthrow of the Constitution he is supposed to “protect.” Thomas as a man with no apparent morality or ethics is unlikely to do the “right” thing on his own; what he will do is try to conceal the truth behind his wife’s skirts and let her take the heat. Of course you have to admit that Thomas is in a bit of “pickle” here. His wife is a lunatic with no honor to defend (as it is defined by normal people), and to publically defend her will reveal him to be just as off-the-rails as she is—and given his “opinions” over the years, we can wonder what it means if his “best friend” has been his chief “counselor.".