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Weekend Butler: The bubble bursts for Will Smith Enterprises. A 6-ingredient chicken. Gorgeous music.
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Published: Mar 31, 2022
Category:
Weekend
THE BUBBLE BURSTS FOR WILL SMITH ENTERPRISES
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Much ink has been spilled on this breach of Oscar etiquette. Some wondered why Smith wasn’t arrested for assault. Some cheered him for standing up for his wife.
I see two simpler explanations.
One comes from his past, when he was 9 years old. As he wrote in his memoir:
“Each of my siblings remember that night in the bedroom with my standing there in the doorway. I watched my father punch my mother so hard in the side of her head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am today.”
Viewed through that lens, Smith was defending his wife (I mean: his mother) against the violence of his father (I mean: Chris Rock).
In the second explanation, he is the exact opposite of that powerless boy. He is one of the most privileged people on earth. His estimated net worth is $350 million. His films have grossed $9 billion. He has won 4 Oscars. He has 62 million Instagram followers. A career of that magnitude is not about one man who is busy all day. It is about Will Smith Enterprises, a corporation, with staff to handle every need and whim. (Michael Douglas had a guy on staff who was largely responsible for keeping his cigars fresh.) Every decision made in his name — and every decision he makes — is considered, reviewed, massaged. Nothing is impromptu or spontaneous. At this level of stardom, the star is a product. So when Smith published a memoir that revealed childhood tragedy and, in the same year, went public about his “open marriage,” those revelations were a statement from Will Smith Enterprises.
Will Smith lives in a bubble. To a degree, we all do. There’s a work bubble, a friends bubble, a family bubble. But we exit those bubbles the minute we step outside and come into contact with the people on the bus, the checker at the supermarket, the stranger at the party. Those contacts do not exist to serve us. They have their own needs, their own damage. Brushing up against them keeps us human. The Will Smiths of Hollywood don’t experience that contact. They’re cheerfully encased with their own kind.
This was my grievance with “Licorice Pizza,” in which a brash 15-year-old kid and a 25-year-old woman forge an unlikely alliance in Encino in 1973. Out of thin air, the boy opens a waterbed store. Out of thinner air, the kids are summoned to the home of Jon Peters, the brash hairdresser who was Barbra Streisand’s lover. I lived in LA in the mid-‘70s, I saw Peters close-up, and I can assure you: Jon Peters lived in a bubble, and loved it. If he wanted a waterbed, he would have had one of his minions buy it, and they would never have bought it from amateurs in Encino. So why is this scene there? Because Peters is played by an over-the-top Bradley Cooper. Just like another irrelevant scene, with a drunk Sean Penn making a motorcycle jump. Smart thinking by the director — when the leading actors are unknowns, sprinkle the film with stars. But if you aren’t mesmerized by the runaway truck or the motorcycle, you’re embarrassed by the director’s cynicism. Because you know better.
Will Smith — the Will Smith who is CEO of Will Smith Enterprises — knows better. But when a guy escapes the bonds of his bubble, anything can happen.
WEEKEND RECIPE: 6 INGREDIENTS, FIVE MINUTES OF PREP
from Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe
Chicken with Nutmeg
Whole free-range chicken
1 lemon
1/2 nutmeg
4 slices prosciutto
1/2 cup white wine
olive oil
Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Cut the lemon in half. Grate the nutmeg.
Rub the chicken all over with the lemon, squeezing the juice into the skin. Season the skin and inside the cavity with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Tuck the prosciutto slices into the cavity.
Put the chicken in a roasting pan, breast-side down, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 90 minutes, basting from time to time. Add the wine after 30 minutes. Turn the bird breast-side up for the last 20 minutes.
Serve with the juices from the pan.
THE BEAUTY PART
Beethoven’s string quartet No. 15 in A minor: “Song of Thanksgiving, in the Lydian Mode, Offered to the Divinity by a Convalescent”
A comment on YouTube: “like listening to somebody praying.”
To watch and listen, click here.
(Many thanks, Mary H.)
