BY: Evan Coyle
Few celebrities have been more superior than Chris Rock at exposing some of the problems with civil rights in America. Rock is a world renowned stand-up who has amassed support for his style of conveying political and philosophical observations through comedy.
Rock wasted little time digging his heels into civil rights issues. The comedian started the show by joking about police brutality.
“You’d think they’d shoot a white kid once in a while, just to not make it so obvious.”
This sharp critique of the law enforcement elicited huge laughs from the crowd.
Later on in the special, Rock commented on the unequal sentencing that minorities have been burdened by.
He jokes that “the American justice system should be like Walmart, if you can find a lesser sentence they’ll match it.”
Rock included a routine about bullying in the special.
He argued that kids need bullying. He dove deeper into the point by alluding to the success of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, making the argument that bullying helped motivate their success.
Forty minutes into the special, I was convinced that “Tamborine” was up to par with his last comedy special “Kill the Messenger” (2008). The last twenty minutes of the show proved otherwise.
Rock delved into his personal life and his recent divorce.
The audience seemed taken aback by his confession that he cheated on his wife. The comic likened playing the “Tamborine” in a band to doing the dirty jobs in a family.
Rock admitted that he struggled to do these jobs.
He bared deep regret about his actions. He clearly sacrificed some laughs to make a sincere point. That being said, the audience did not respond as voluminously with the material that followed.
Despite its deflating finish the first forty minutes of the special were superbly funny. If you can summon the strength to put a pause on re-watching “The Office,” or even take a day off from going to the office, then here’s a pleasurable forty minutes of your life that has nothing to do with work.