Philly comedian: Dear audience, please don’t take a cue from Will Smith | Opinion

I am a comedian based in Philadelphia who has been performing in front of live audiences for years, and I have never seen anything like what Will Smith did to Chris Rock at the Oscars.

Well, let me take that back — I have seen it, just not on live, national television.

Being a comedian can be tough, especially as a woman. And I’ve had a few close calls with audience members myself. I just hope this incident doesn’t make things any harder for us comedians than it is already.

A few years ago, when I was just starting out, I tried some new material on an audience in Brooklyn. It wasn’t very good — I presented it out of order, and it just wasn’t funny. The audience was so upset, and aggressive, I felt like they wanted to fight me.

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I’ll admit, I’ve had a spicy moment myself. One time I was performing in a small club and a man in the audience took a phone call. I could hear the whole conversation — he was arguing with his girlfriend while I was doing my set. I was so annoyed because it threw me off, I stopped my act and yelled at him to get off of his phone in front of everyone. Luckily, he hung up and I went back to my show. Looking back now, I see he could’ve responded aggressively and the show could’ve been ruined. I could’ve gotten hurt.

A lot of smaller venues don’t have security, so comedians are on stage with little protection.

I’ve never really felt scared on stage, but I am also careful. My mother always reminds me that people come to comedy shows to laugh and feel good, and you never know what people are going through. So I try to not single audience members out and pick with them. If I can tell by an audience’s reaction that a joke isn’t going over well, I’ll cut it short and move on. For instance, after getting booed for a joke that included the word abortion, I’m more cautious about telling it and reframed it a little. (The joke isn’t even about abortion.)

I also don’t get super aggressive with hecklers — I’ve seen other comedians do that, and that could escalate quickly.

“If someone had done that to me on national television, they probably would’ve had to turn the cameras off, because I definitely would’ve gotten spicy.”

So I had a lot of mixed feelings when I saw Will Smith slap Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about his wife. On the one hand, I empathize: I don’t like people disrespecting me and talking about me on stage, either. I suspect that Smith had reached a point where he had just had enough. We’re all human, and sometimes we have moments where enough is enough.

On the other hand, when he made the joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Rock may have had no idea that she was suffering from hair loss. Even if he knew, he didn’t deserve to get slapped over it. Smith should have kept his cool, talked to Rock afterward, and asked him to apologize.

As a fellow comedian, I have to hugely commend Chris Rock for remaining so professional in that moment. If someone had done that to me on national television, they probably would’ve had to turn the cameras off, because I definitely would’ve gotten spicy.

I have some gigs coming up, and I really hope audience members don’t take a cue from Will Smith and think it’s OK to get on stage and be aggressive with us. The world needs comedians to feel unafraid — we are philosophers who often point out the injustices or patterns that need correcting. Because we package it all in jokes, people will listen, which can be very impactful. Just think how many people only get their news from Trevor Noah.

I can’t avoid offending everyone all the time. But there is a fine line, and it may get crossed from time to time. While I believe we should be able to say what we want, I also understand that there could be consequences.

That said, I hope we can move past this situation and get back to laughing.

Tiff Money is a comedian based in Philadelphia. tiffmoneytalks.com