Here’s how Will Smith ruined my writing process. Do COMEDIANS need sensitivity readers too?

WARNING: All thin-skinned, overly sensitive folks should vacate this page immediately!

Me to my kids: What's the magic word?

My kids: I’m offended!

Me: Good. You can have a treat now

—RE:BOOKS

Buckle up! There’s a rambling tantrum brewing inside me…

If you are easily offended, now would be a good time to fuck off stop reading.

Not only did Will Smith ruin the evening for all of the Oscar winners, but he has also ruined my entire two-decades-long writing process. Thanks, Will. #dontbewill

Maybe my tolerance for stupidity is somewhat low these days. Maybe I’ve only been getting “Mom Sleep,” which is regular sleep, just without the sleep part.

But I can tell you this: Sometimes, I truly think some people were put on this planet just to test my anger management.

Like Will fucking Smith.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would need to re-evaluate my entire writing process, thanks to an A-List actor slapping comedian Chris Rock on Oscar night — the slap heard, seen, and talked about around the world.

I don’t know when people lost their sense of humour — back in 2016? — but at this point, I’m too afraid to ask. Yet, I could say it happened on Oscar Night 2022.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be living in Crazy Town, where — at least at present — the world no longer seems to be divided by race, culture, sexuality, or gender but between those who can take a joke and those who can’t.

I have a pretty high tolerance for raunchiness and shock value, both hearing it, saying it and writing it. I don’t have as much tolerance for those who don’t have a sense of humour, especially over a joke by a comedian whose sole job it is to entertain and make people laugh. 

Some people are so easily offended nowadays that I have come to the conclusion that offending at least one person is now just a natural consequence of me waking up. 

Sure, I’ll freak out when I drop my phone. But if a friend trips? I tend to laugh. They don’t get insulted. They laugh too. And then call me something really insulting and offensive.

Before I delve into why and how The Fresh Prince fucked up my entire writing process, here's a little background…

During the award show, Will Smith, who was nominated for Best Actor for his role in King Richard, got up from his seat and slapped comedian Chris Rock after Rock made a joke about Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and her shaved head. 

“Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can't wait to see it, all right?” the comedian joked. I'm still processing what happened next, after being sucked into the black hole that is the websphere yesterday (I wrote this the morning after), to the point where I couldn’t sleep. (So, fuck you for that too, Will Smith!)

After slapping the comedian, like hard, Smith then returned to his front-row seat and yelled to Rock, twice, to “Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth.”

To which Rock replied, “Wow, dude. It was a G.I. Jane joke.”

Well, not so much to Will, who acted as if he had never met or heard of Chris Rock, nor seen him perform. I mean, Chris Rock has only been a stand-up comedian for several decades. He was a cast member on Saturday Night Life. His trademark catchphrase, for fuck’s sake is (or was), “Yeah, I said it!”

I'm still processing. Because before Will Smith got up to slap Chris Rock, he was laughing at Rock’s joke, that is until…I don’t know WTF happened. And… 

I now can no longer put my phone on airplane mode when I write for fear of missing out on something that just happened. I had to change the trajectory of the piece I had originally worked on for 8 hours. So, fuck you, Will, for all those wasted hours!

For years, I’ve created distraction-free environments while I'm writing, which backfired greatly this week.

Fucking Will Smith!

I skipped watching the Oscars this year — damn! — going to bed at 8:30 p.m in order to get up at 4:30 a.m. on Monday morning to write in silence as I usually do, which is part of my writing process.

I also put my phone on airplane mode, also not unusual and part of my writing process when I really need to focus.

But, this meant I did not look at my phone once until 7:30 p.m. on Monday evening, after spending the entire day researching “sensitivity readers” — yes it's a real job in publishing and clearly a much-needed one, which I will delve into.

As I was writing about sensitivity readers, and how scared some writers are nowadays that they will offend someone, I also delved into how scared comedians have become — while completely unaware of what had happened at the Oscars the previous evening!

Which means I had to start writing all over again. So fuck you, Will!

Chris Rock has previously said that he stopped doing stand-up comedy at colleges because they were too conservative, not in their political views but in their “social views” and their willingness not to offend anybody.

“You can't even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive,” Rock has said in the past. (And, yes, I did just chuckle. Because it’s funny!)

Earlier this year, comedian Steve Harvey shared he was quitting stand-up, for fear it could “end" his TV career hosting Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud and Judge Steve Harvey.

“The only way I can do one more [comedy] special is that it would have be at the end of my television career, because it will end my television career,” Harvey said, later joking he would have to call the special, “Well, This Is It!”

“We’re in the cancel culture, and nobody, no stand-up alive that is sponsor-driven can say anything he wants to,” Harvey explained. “If I had tried to continue as a stand-up, there’s no way I could maintain a TV career. Because political correctness has killed comedy. It’s killed it.”

“Every joke you tell now, it hurts somebody’s feelings. What people don’t understand about comedians is that a joke has to be about something. It has to be about somebody. You can’t write jokes about puppies all the time… Some of these jokes have to be about people because that’s the most interesting topic.”

The same could be said for writers, who can’t just write about puppies. They have to write about people, or characters, because people are fascinating AF.

“We are in an age of faux outrage. Sometimes people don't even know why they're angry. They just jump on the bandwagon. They don't even do the research,” comedian Trevor Noah has said. 

He's not wrong — right now there are people tweeting that it’s “never okay to joke about alopecia,” even if they don’t know what alopecia is or hadn't heard of this word before Sunday night.

And where exactly did Will and Jada think they were going? The Oscars have been a sea of bad jokes for decades.

In any case, sensitivity readers” are hired by publishers, editors, and self-published authors to read their novels, books, or articles, to be certain they are not being insensitive to readers. 

Which makes me wonder if the world has gone mad now, after watching clips of the Oscars, if comedians — many of whom are exceptional writers — also need sensitivity readers to vet their bits and routines, which makes me want to scream, “It's called a joke. We used to tell them before everyone got offended by everything!”

Sensitivity readers in publishing are on the lookout for unintentionally insensitive or incorrect portrayals in books on everything from race and sexuality, religion and disabilities to even characters who suffer from migraines, asthma, or are recovering from weight loss surgery, as you’ll see below.

A skilled sensitivity reader will suggest how an author can write with greater sensitivity if certain passages or characters are portrayed in misrepresented light — before the book goes to print.

It doesn't matter anymore how well-intentioned or genuinely kind-hearted an author is: If the author doesn't or hasn’t shared the same experience as their characters and includes language that may pose a problem to readers, a publisher will hire a sensitivity reader.

Offending readers is becoming a natural consequence of writing. And I’m not talking about offending relatives in a memoir, as I wrote last week.

If what you write is deemed insensitive by anyone? You’re fucked. If you offend someone with what you write? You’re fucked. If you happen to be a comedian poking fun at someone’s shaved head — because they happen to have alopecia and you happen to be a comedian — you’ll be slapped on live television in front of the world.

“It’s very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that’ as if that gives them certain rights,” comedian Stephen Fry said. “It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I’m offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what?”

When it comes to my memoirs, I always hire a lawyer to vet them.

But, nowadays? The greater risk for authors than being sued is that someone will find something you've written as being insensitive and offensive to readers. (If I learned anything from watching clips of the Oscar Slap, it’s….joking about alopecia is not okay. Period.) 

Although, the shit disturber in me — who laughs at my own jokes sometimes before even finishing them — wants to joke that the world has never been more aware of alopecia than right now — so, maybe something good did come out of all of this?

Still, now any author who happens to have a character in their novel who happens to have alopecia will need it vetted by Jada Pinkett Smith someone who has alopecia. Unless you happen to be a writer living with alopecia. And now comedians need to worry that they could face reprisal from people who don’t like a joke.

“It is a very bad practice to walk up on stage and physically assault a comedian. Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theatres," tweeted comedian Kathy Griffin.

Yet, in an Instagram post Pinkett Smith shared last December, she shared she was going to have her hair taken “down to the scalp” so nobody thinks I got brain surgery or something.” She ends with “Me and this alopecia are going to be friends…period!”

Now, if I were super sensitive and easily offended, I would be offended over her Insta post on behalf of everyone — including someone quite close to me — who actually has a brain tumour and needs brain surgery, which, no offence, is way worse than having to shave your head. Do you see where this road is leading?

Being offended has become a competitive sport!

Some think sensitivity readers police expression of thought, which will lead to terrified authors afraid to tackle complex or controversial topics.

For publishers, sensitivity readers can avert the embarrassing predicament of cancelling a book tour and public apologies — apologies, mind you, that some will find take even more offence to.

Usually, sensitivity readers are called upon when it comes to race, culture, religion, gender, sexuality, or disabilities.

However, the reality is that while more diverse books are being published — Yay! — many of them are still written by authors who have little real-world context for writing about a race or culture or religion outside their own — thus the skills of such specialized sensitivity Readers come into play.

“When I gave a talk to the Association of Booksellers about cultural appropriation, several agents came up to me afterwards and said that they had authors abandoning novels left, right and centre because they were worried about writing in the voice of “the other,” Kit de Waal said in this speech.

Sensitivity Readers have became A Thing.

Here are sample of bios I found of sensitivity readers for hire, along with what they can help authors with:

[Name]

Black woman; monocular; history of blindness; wife of disabled veteran; interracial marriage (white husband); mother of biracial daughter; diagnosed Alpha Thalassemia; diagnosed moderate-severe asthma; PTSD (resulting from CSA) history of weight-loss surgery; extensive medical treatment across multiple specialties.

[Name]

Black (African American); LGBTAQIA+ (transfeminine, non-binary, queer, lesbian, asexual spectrum); disability; mental Illness (social anxiety)

[Name]

Black, Haitian American, Afro Latina/e; chronic migraines; Hard-of-Hearing (HoH) physical rehabilitation (regarding mobility); survivor of natural disaster; family member with mental and emotional health disorders; cerebral palsy; gay male themes; asexuality and demisexuality; ableism.

[Name]

Womanhood and the female perspective; religion (polytheism, Hellenismos, multi-Christian upbringing; basic Japanese; obesity and food addiction; foster care system and children services; mental health (abuse survivor, chronic anxiety, PTSD, parental substance abuse and institutionalization.

“Write what you know” — an old publishing adage — has now taken on a whole new meaning for writers scared to write about an experience or a lifestyle they do not personally live themselves.

And writers tell me all the time how scared they are to write for fear that certain passages or characters are misrepresented. (In fact, I'm wondering if I should have hired a sensitivity reader for this post!) 

Writers — at least the ones I know — do not ever want to offend or be called out as racist or homophobic or transphobic or be accused of cultural appropriation or misgendering, which, if the author hasn’t personally lived these experiences, could easily happen.

Sensitivity readers help save publishers, authors and writers in today’s divisive batshit crazy online environment (Tweet! Tweet!) from real-time social media backlash, resulting in book tour cancellations, readings, and— worst-case scenario — their book being withdrawn from publication.

“I don’t have any time for sensitivity readers. That’s what editors are supposed to do,” someone in the publishing industry told me, asking to remain anonymous. “Also, sometimes there's nothing wrong with rubbing people’s sensitivities the wrong way. I have a high tolerance for objectionable opinions. No one has a god-given right to go through life without being offended or triggered…”

Some also argue that the increasing need for sensitivity readers discourages authors from artistic license — experimenting and writing outside of their own perspectives. Writers want to write the book they want to write and inhabit other lives using their imagination.

“I don’t want to write anymore. Readers are hyper-vigilant for authors to slip up, and now it seems that readers get pleasure trying to catch me in a mistake. It doesn’t count that I take great caution and do my research,”  said an author friend who happens to be white and happens to be middle-aged and happens to be wealthy who I happened to meet for lunch — people first, writers! — who told me that “at least you have that ‘woman thing’ still going for you, and maybe the Mediterranean vibe thing going for you. I can’t write shit these days without an editor just taking out sentences, butchering my voice, for fear that it could maybe, potentially, possibly, perhaps offend even one reader.”

(See? My friends are even more offensive than I am, which is the way I like it!)

I joked that he should definitely stay away from Liberal Arts Universities — the most fertile ground for the “woke.”

I know this, as I told my friend, because I just spent the last five days with my 18-year-old daughter. It may have been spring break for her/she, but it felt like I was being lectured every time I had questions on pronoun usage. Or whenever I opened my mouth to say anything, really. 

Frankly, in some ways, I told my friend, I think people need to be offended. If no one is offended, we really have no temperature on where society stands. 

Now the world knows it’s not cool to joke about alopecia.  

Make no mistake: unless you are a comedian, you should not purposely write to offend people. You should aim to write well and try not to do any harm along the way.

As my friend and I were saying goodbye, I threw out, “See you later, ROMEO,” which is not his name but an acronym for Rich Old Men Eating Out. (In a restaurant, not the sexual act. See? Look how offensive I am!)

Well, I find it funny.