Episode 1 Transcript
Welcome to episode 1. Pull up and seat and have a read. If on the go tune in to the podcast version and enjoy.
"Will Mr Smith sit the F@k down."
Intro with Oscar's Talk 2022
Good morning, Good evening and Good day to everyone out there listening to me on this fine fine day, My name is Ryan Silver and I’m coming to you with my Podcast CANNING SHAME.
Shame is an emotion that no one wants to feel at anytime. In fact we go out of our way to avoid situations that we perceive as shame inducing. However, shame is something that we carry with us, yes all of us, no one is exempt here, shame is an insecurity we hold about and within ourselves.
Who is this person Ryan Silver, Who am I? what can I teach you about shame? Well I’m a Forensic Behaviour Criminologist with 20+ years under my belt. And have I not only studied insecurities and behaviour I have lived well within shame. Oh yes I have, as I said no one is exempt here, even someone with all the know.
Now, what does a Forensic Behavioural Criminologist do? Well this field of study covers an array of areas in the scope of things. Breaking it up, you can be a behaviour criminologist, a forensic behaviouralist, a forensic criminologist, you get it, swapping the words up swaps the career focus. I started this career path as a behavioural analyst, then a behavioural investigator, then a criminal profiler, then a criminal psychologist, to then a forensic criminologist till I gained the title Forensic Behavioural Criminologist. My last role was as a forensic criminologist however, I loved it so much I didn’t move on, I attended fatality scenes and performed autopsies. I was in the grit of it, up to my elbows. There isn’t really anything I haven’t seen. And not much shocks me now.
Now I know that all sounds dark, dealing with death, murderers, deviants on a daily basis but actually my 1st degree was in Fine Art and my 4th degree was in photography, so you guessed it I also love creating art, and fine art photography and I like to dabble in the kitchen.
I may drop into my future podcasts any creative work or meals I have done or experienced as a little light relief to such strong subjects associated with Shame.
When I get asked what do you do? When I tell people what I do, the first response is intrigue, then amygdala kicks in with fear that I can read their minds, I’m profiling them or I may infect them with death! And the follow up question is always Why did you choose that as a career? Let me get real up close and personal with all you beautiful people out there taking time to listen to me. And give you a bullet point on why I chose crime and death as a career. I’m the typical behaviouralist slash criminologist, I was redirected into it by personal experience, or trauma, yes we can tick it off as trauma.
I’ve been through poverty, domestic violence, military, the murder of my child, medical negligence, a stalker, rape, divorce, bankruptcy, toxic work culture, work place bullying, work place assault, toxic friends and health complications to name just a few. I will go into a lot more detail through my podcasts.
The exact point my career became crime and behaviour focused is when my son Connor was murdered. There was a lot of focus around his death and complication because it became political. It wasn’t someone random or someone close to him it was someone in a trusted position and politicians used this for their own agenda. That is my catalyst to who I am today.
Today I wasn’t going to do any segment on any topic but something happened this week that has been all over everything, I cant escape it, yes, I’m talking about the slap!!! The Oscars night of shame!
I’m not an Oscars watcher, or such, but I do look at the pics of the red carpet and read who won. I do however seek out the memoriam, yes death, I know! I like the memoriam its nice to see people remembered for the accomplishments. I see who is there, if I don’t know them I’ll imbd them, and I take note of who’s been missed.
This year we had Sidney Poitier and The last golden girl Betty White. to only name 2 of the most incredible talent in the arts. But do you think I could find it? I found a terrible video, but it got me thinking how I haven’t really heard about the winners apart from one! But for all the wrong reasons. It’s like no one else won a thing, no one cared about who is gone, and Amy, Wanda & Reginas hard work into the prep for this event was irrelevant, wheres the recognition for their hardwork? Amy has come out stating she has suffered trauma, this is vicarious trauma when someone has an empathic response to someone else's trauma, it can trigger memories of past personal traumatic experiences, or be from fear kicking in saying that could have been me, or just that they connect with that person. Also Wanda has stated she felt physically sick by it. This is because they were behind the scenes with the victim Rock and seen personally the pain he was in, emotionally and physically. And if he didn’t cry from just the pain on his face, he held it back.
So yes, today I’m addressing this Oscars as it covers a lot of the topics my podcast of Shame will be touching on. Such as verbal abuse, fatalism, group mentality, individualising values, vicarious trauma, binding values, assault, work place assault and victim blaming, and I’ll come up with more as I go on, trust me, I’ll get to the meat of it.
So let’s start at the beginning. Chris Rock the primary host of the Oscars this year, he’s not new to it, he host the 2005 and 2016 oscars also. We know from any past award show that the hosts being comedians like Steve Martin, Ricky Gervais and Chris Rock its like a welcome to my house, let me entertain you with some jokes and a mini roast session. I’ve only seen one roast and toast, the biebs one, it was brutal, anyway I digress. If they didn’t want it they wouldn’t hire comedians.
Being the devils advocate here, could it be that the line fell completely on its ass by being misinterpreted. Jada is a strong vocal public advocate of many things including her alopecia, she is empowered and doesn’t hold back. She got in front of alopecia by taking the power and control back from it, by shaving her head. That’s power right there. She's an icon for a lot of women suffering from many conditions that involve losing their hair. Hair is part of someones identity, a lot of people feel defined by their hair. So you got to admire her. A strong women taking control shaves her head. The front cover of Rose McGowans book was her with a shaved head and the title BRAVE! Everyday local female hero's around the world shave their heads for charity in aid & support of those that lose their hair through illness. Jada with her statements and videos lifted any shame in losing your hair and alopecia, incredible. Just incredible.
The other women who took control and the power back was Jordan O’Neill, Demi Moores character in GI Jane. Now hear me out, granted it wasn’t due to an illness, it was a choice due to circumstances affecting her. We are all on the cusp of a pandemic, disasters, lock downs and war, it is only natural to only see and hear the negative of anything, at a time when social media is about bitching the fuck out of anything at all, the world has suffered big over the last 2 to 3 years. So it's natural with the lockdowns that peoples empathy levels have depleted, you can only get empathy with active conscious interaction, and the individual moral framework has been skewed. When you are in isolation in prison, thinking becomes about self, paranoia, panic, anxiety and aggression on top of depression, this lowers empathy to depletion depending on the length of time. So a world lockdown with only twitter as your interaction with the outside world has increased social anxiety and fucked up social behaviour. If someone has isolated with someone close to them, family, partner or house mate, the chances are they are supports of them and will validate there grievances they’ve had with outsiders, be it retail staff, work colleagues or even the postie. This is for single isolators too, they will always find a similar believe system on social media to validate their grievances. We are creatures of habit, and when our habit has been set it can be hard to change that. Working from home created a new habit, the news went from people in cupboards under the stairs crying while trying to do their job to fast forward a year and the news is saying companies are panicking as no one wants to come back to the office they like working from home, because they have a new habit. My electricity rep had chickens squawking in the background while trying to sort my issue, she was un fazed, so following her example so was I. So are we only seeing the negative of Chris Rocks GI Jane line. For a refresher the line was ADD CHRIS ROCK SAYING HIS GI LINE could it have been a veiled compliment!?
Let's look at GI Jane, a movie released in 1997, I went to the movies to see it. Jordan O’Neill a lieutenant in the Navy is given the opportunity to be the first and only female enrolled in the all male arena of the Navy Seals. A change that impacts the whole idea of masculinity, gender and the politics of these. So, ye it doesn’t go well, O’Neill isn't welcomed in and treated like shit. When we look at the guys in the forces, their hair is crew cut.
When I was in the Navy that was the same, all guys had very short hair or crew cuts but most women had buns. The rule for all was hair off collar, no exception. So it was buns for us. During my time in the navy, due to a medical condition I had to shave my hair off, I had a lump on my lower spine that had to be treated and removed, my hair was falling out, so I lost my arse touching hair by shaving it off. I look back at videos and pictures of me back then with my short back and sides and over hair sprayed front flip, it was like a flying saucer, if the wind caught it, it stood to attention! I tell you though I looked taller, stronger and personally together.
Anyway I digress, GI Jane, what is GI Jane? It’s a movie about female empowerment, it’s a test between a woman’s body and a woman’s will. It was a powerful movie that will boost most women's spirits, well it did mine, maybe thats why I heard Rocks line as a compliment??
Look this is my opinion on this situation, I have studied psych, behaviour and crime for over two decades but its not like 1 + 1 = 2, its not an exact science, its just another perspective to consider with all the tools of understanding human laws of behaviour.
Demi as O’Neill made the audience feel they could do anything with an incredible performance. The shave scene, carried so much emotion as she looked at the trimmers and then to her reflection for some time, assessing the situation, you can see the inner struggle, the fear and anxiety in her eyes and posture. She takes that leap of faith off the cliff and trims the first part from front to back, there is no going back now. This scene was done in 2 takes, she had to wander around for a good part of the day with half her head shaved, Demi has done so many videos and talks about this, the weirdness and how her humour handled it. When all finished she is standing there in front of the mirror looking at herself, she rubs her head all over, reintroducing herself to herself, our sense of touch is pivotal t us. Becoming one with her dramatic new look. And good gosh she looked HOT!!!! GO DEMI GO DEMI. She was still amazingly feminine. Anyway…. I found an interview by Demis daughter Tallulah in the 2020 People mag, 23 years after her mum shaved her head, Tallulah shaves hers and says to People mag “if I could feel beautiful with no hair then I will literally feel good in any situation.” Fuk yes!!! Loving these women.
I’ve gone into so much detail about GI Jane on the account that after the slap while Smith was verbally abusing Rock, Rock was saying it was about GI Jane. So I felt the Connotations, denotations and inter respectives of GI Jane had to be talked about.
This movie was so far ahead of its time, in the sense that Navy Seals didn’t open to women till almost 20 years later in 2016 and the first female to get through Seal training was in 2019!!! Yes 2019…22 years after Demi showed us how to commit!
Look it could have been as simple as Rock reacting to Jada dressed in green with her shaved head and connecting that to GI Jane, basic connotation but still is that so bad based on what the movie represents?
So anyway let's break the incident down on a behavioural level. We all know the line PLAY THE LINE FROM ROCK . Lets look at Jada's response, she was leaning to her side with her head titled, demonstrating she was comfortable, a smile and watching Rock with pleasant amusement, 2 seconds after the line her body language completely changed, while Smiths was still relaxed and laughing with no restrain, at all. Now I will add it takes 0.6 seconds to react with anger, in this situation it took Jada 2 seconds to react, but it wasn’t anger, no no no. Let me break it down. It starts with her eyes closing and opening with her eyes looking up, this can represent her looking at possible images in her head while over thinking something she has heard, a word/line has triggered a adaptive unconscious, now the eyes roll, in exasperation, commonly from hurtful jokes or sarcasm. However her eye roll was slow and deliberate, in a way of saying i'm fatigued in hearing this yet a bloody gain. Now, 2 seconds into Jada's physical and mental reaction to Rocks line She has has a one eye wink with a stretched taut mouth, highlighting how unimpressed she is. Now her hands are fully clasped together at this stage, after a visual demonstration of look at my hands they are saying I have strong feelings on this topic, i'm going to get frustrated. She is now sitting up straight, this is her becoming more focused on what is going on with some defensiveness, because she didn’t turn fully front facing, it wasn't full defensiveness it was more fuk really! We going there. The final posture reaction to Rock is the side eye look with non verbal language she is saying to Rock SERIOUSLY FUK Seriously!!!!
Now during all this Smith is oblivious to Jada's reaction and is having a good old time, belly laughing away. The camera pans away and this is when the real shit went down between them. Now anyone that has been married knows that the frustration you get with your man when he isn’t reading your body language and getting it all sorts of wrong. Well Smith, he did, a side glans to the wife would have given him a heads up on calm that laugh down darling or we are having words at home. His reaction vs her reaction says they where definitely in for a tense trip home. As a hubby facing the array of words at home turned her unhappiness at his belly laugh and her Seriously feeling towards Rock into a moment for redemption from his wife's wrath. His adaptive unconscious came up with an immediate response of rage. He had let her down with his physical reaction of laughing to hard to the line and felt he had to make a physical reaction of similar weight. These are our most primal emotional responses. Happy, Sad, Anger.
Smith walks on up to the stage and slaps Rock, Rock puts up no defence, no instinctive defensive reactions, no ducking and weaving, no raised arms. It was a clean slap. This has raised the debate on was it fake. Well, Rock has a learning disability (yes Smith assaulted a person with a disability), he cant read body language, he cant pick up on social cues. NVLD, non verbal learning disorder is in the the go to guide for doctors DSM-5 closely related to autism, but isn’t,. They also don’t get sarcasm, if anyone who has watched Sheldon in the big bang theory you get it. Rock went public 2 years ago in 2020 with this. This explains why there was no defence from Rock and pure surprise. Oh yes his face was pure surprise. Look at Smiths body when slapping, he puts his entire body weight and strength into it, his feet are positioned for full hip support. The slap came with a great deal of force, and could probably be heard a room away without mics.
Post slap Smith does his Wild Wild West Swagger off stage, standing tall, shoulders back, chest strong, head and chin up demonstrating righteousness and confidence. Look at his line of sight, he is walking tall while looking over at Jada. He has demonstrated his strength and regained his honour with his wife. Hmmmm, limited thinking there. Seriously, a bit more spatial thinking would have mind mapped the consequence’s of this response to a huge nope. It would have been Next, new idea on how to handle this.
Rock on the other hand is taken by surprise, kicked off his rhythm, and takes a full 15 seconds to collect himself enough to crack a joke, but it is laced with inner pain, anxiety and looks a bit lost on what happens now. Anyone with anxiety knows 15seconds feels like an hour. He looks around and over to fellow staff of the Oscars behind the scenes for support, guidance, aid. You see his body language change, he has gone from a confident nervousness movement around the stage to his shoulders lowering, he has now been weighed down, he exhales a strong sigh, demonstrating sadness, both these actions at the same time can demonstrate low mood with depression fringes. You see him processing the situation and attempts to reestablish composure to continue hosting, however, you see in his eyes and tonal range that the joy is no longer there.
From what I understand and would expect having done seminars and talks all over there is a great deal of work that goes into the prep for these events, by not just the organisers but the talent that the event committee has acquired for the night. It’s the Oscars, this is one of the biggest honours out there in the Arts world. Being asked to work for the Oscars, Way hey I’m awesome. They commit weeks if not months of work on setting this up to make it a great night for the guests and viewers around the world.
What effect has the slap had on reactions. It’s a mixed bag, there are those that condemn it and others that condone it with a party bag mix of reasons why. They all go to the negative connotation of ADD LINE . Blaming Rock for what happened. Isn’t the culture of victim blaming over??? Seriously with all the coverage aren’t we more PC on situations like this, hmmm apparently not. Blaming a victim is still rife! The cop out they had it coming, is why we have so much legal injustice through unconscious bias. What is victim blaming, why are people prone to it and do they know they are doing it? In most cases no, they don’t know they are doing it or why. It’s a psychological reaction to a crime. Triggered by fear, there’s a strong internal need to believe that people deserve what happens to them, they deserve the outcome & consequences because bad things done to happen to good people. It is their inner psych trying to make them feel safe. However, for the loved ones of the perpetrator, they reconcile the fact that someone they love has done something bad by over empathising with the perpetrator by focusing on their achievements and attributes. And by doing so throws shade on the victim, victim blaming. In this case Smiths wife and son have done just that.
Now putting on my Criminologist hat for a moment, in this case Smith is the perpetrator, someone who acts within their own moral framework out with social standards, he committed assault, there was no self defence, it was clean cut assault, he is a perpetrator regardless of wealth, fame or stature.
This should have been one of Smiths greatest nights in his career and he ruined it by committing a criminal act. Yes, it is a crime to hit someone. NO matter the reason, unless in self defence. It is GBH. And comes with an arrest, charge, and penalty. Anyone else would have been arrested there and then.
But wait it didn’t end there, let's look at Smiths behaviour when he sat back down. He continued the assault on Rock with emotional abuse by continually yelling profanity at Rock. Profanity is a reflection of anger, fear or passion with the intention to inflict emotional pain and incite violence. Rocks attempt to calm Smiths tirade with highlighting it was about GI Jane fell short, Smith was in too deep at this stage, out of control of his inner composure, he was now functioning on full visceral emotion, Rocks inner self defence mechanism became submissive to Smith. He relinquished all control of the situation to Smith the perpetrator and abuser. At this stage the only Shame Smith was demonstrating was shame towards his wife in his laughter at the GI Jane line.
Later Smith gave a winners speech on the same stage. What was wrong and right with Smiths speech. To start with was the standing ovation…seriously, the guy has assaulted and abused someone in front of you. Shit that would have made Rocks self-worth feel the size of a bug! What was demonstrated here was fatalism, the attitude that what has happened is ordained and an internal resignation to the event, it commonly comes with group mentality, adopted from emotions influenced by peers rather than rationality, disregarding their individualising values. Oh the shame a lot of them will be feeling and struggling to rationalise with their actions right now will be immense.
Smith was crying while giving his speech explaining that he isn’t crying because he won an award, He gave various reasons why he was crying, explaining away the shame of what he done, projecting the blame the shame of his actions onto others.
Lets break it down…
1. Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family…doing the film he got to PROTECT (exaggerated) delicate people… the co stars and the Williams sisters
These delicate people according to the speech where the co stars and the William sisters, what? He’s an actor playing a character on a managed set not a security guard getting them out of a war torn country. Also, Smith eluded that he was being just like Richard Williams, haven’t seen the movie but that doesn’t sound positive.
2. He is overwhelmed on what God is calling on him to do…he’s being called upon to PROTECT people.
Again with the PROTECT, again, Smith isn’t in a war. He’s at a glitzy event where he got a red carpet and 2000 star table service. Plus, how many wars, barbaric acts or suicide bombings have occurred under the name of God calling on them.
3. He’s expected to be able to take abuse and have people talk crazy about him and disrespect him, he’s got to smile and pretend
Smith didn’t have any abuse given to him,, he wasn’t disrespected by Rock. The line ROCKS LINE Was towards Jada and he found it very funny, no pretend smile there, as we discussed earlier. This is what abusers say when trying to relief the shame from the aftermath, it is called trying to change the narrative. Confuse others recollections of what occurred. Hmmm, auto relay wont allow that, just makes this sound even more desperate.
4. Denzel says at you highest moment the devil comes for you
Smith seems have misinterpreted this while in his deep narcissism and panic to relief his burden of shame. This saying relates to introspective. When someone needs to observe and examine ones own ego. Denzel was talking about Smiths inner Devil coming to get him, not Rock.
5. I want to be a vessel for love, he wants to be an ambassador of Richards Williams love, care and concern
Again, bringing it all on being like Richard Williams. That the Williams condone violence and abuse. And has confused love, care and concern with the right to respond with violence.
6. He apologises to everyone except Rock
Smith clearly knows his action was shameful this is his only right in this speech…or he wouldn’t have apologised. but after all he has said about Richard Williams and the whole make up of the film, with love and care for them he has counteracted that by apologising to the academy, he's now said it wasn’t being called on to protect others but bad behaviour. He has now really thrown the shade and the shame on Richard Williams.
7. Love makes you do crazy things!
After apologising to everyone, and just when he should say Chris Rock, he says this. How many Domestic Violence victims and stalker victims have heard this line roll out of the perpetrators mouth. I know the hairs on my neck stood up!
Ok, let's finish this off with a little about moral framework and ethics.
Arghhh you know what let me have some water, you know I got this candy bar at the store earlier and if I wanted to eat my carpet I could have done it for free. Grabbing some essentials to do some washing, I spotted in the check out point of sale, you know the bit, where the stores cause kid and parent disputes. Well being an adult I got to relive some kid memories when I spotted a Milo bar. Yay, lottery!!!!! So excited I cracked it open as soon as I got in the car. It was NO milo bar I remember, this had zero happy, pleasure, milkiness and absolutely deprived in any way of pure unadulterated delight, it was dust compressed into carpet form. Give that to a kid and they’d emancipate you thinking you hate them. *not sponsored by Milo….
Anyway, side track, back to morals and ethics. This Milo bar has to be morally wrong. Not a great add for health food! Anyway again….
Our moral framework is designed to make sure we have common values that make for a safe society. WE all know violence be it physical or emotional is wrong, that is why we have laws against it and spend billions a year campaigning against violence, physical and verbal, the posters are everywhere. Ethics is the same thing giving us personal responsibility to value everyone’s right to be safe from wrongs. It is code of conduct.
So the question is was Smith morally and ethically right to hit and verbally abuse Rock?
Its simple…NO. regardless of his speech and attempt to change the narrative and supporters of Smiths actions, it was morally and ethically wrong. If we were to react to everything we interpret as offence be it correctly interpreted or misinterpreted then chaos would occur, society standards would fall and no one would be safe, we’d go back decades.
We all see the videos going around of people getting escorted out of places of business like target or restaurants for being violent or just getting pissy over something that doesn’t sit in their moral framework. We laugh, saying good riddance, serves them right for being wrong and feel empathy for the worker.
Smith was a visitor to Rocks place of work. As the MC for the night he was at work, plus the fellow hosts and the Oscars committee. Now being a guest in this business establishment you don’t physically or verbally attack an employee and expect to stay. Smith not being escorted from the building and spoken too by law enforcement has brought shame on the academy. The academy now has to deal with the shame of not protecting or respecting their employee, they have to demonstrate how they would protect other employees in the future as they didn’t set an example of policy or procedure of code of conduct that night. Are the other comedians walking around the patrons safe? Will they be safe in the future with the example that has been set? All valid questions.
I will finish this topic, by saying that to support the actions of Smith and those who stood by and let Rock suffer the shame and physical pain of being physically and verbally assaulted with either amusement of righteousness by putting it down to Rock getting what he deserves because he made a fool of Jada's alopecia and brought shame on to the condition. Well that is a well stretched assumption and a cop out! Alopecia was never mentioned…GI Jane was, a strong empowered woman just like Jada.
Thank you for listening. Remember to Self Hug 💗
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