Today, as Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, Chris Rock also got in on the action. He released his DVD Kill the Messenger. CNN recently sat down with Rock to talk politics. Rock mentioned how it won’t be easy to make fun of the new President.
He’s just one of those guys, you know, like Will Smith. There’s no Will Smith jokes. There’s no Brad Pitt jokes. You know, what are you going to say? “Ooh, you used to have sex with Jennifer Anniston. Now you have sex with Angelina Jolie. You’re such a loser.” What do you say? “Ooh, your movies are big. You make $20 million.” There’s nothing to say about Brad Pitt…. It’s like “Ooh, you’re young and virile and you’ve got a beautiful wife and kids. You’re the first African-American president.” You know, what do you say?
Will it get easier?
Of course, as time goes on. At some point he’s going to — there’s always slip-ups. No one can survive that level of scrutiny without occasionally making it easy for a comedian.
Why isn’t Rock at the Inauguration?
I’ve got a movie premiering at Sundance. So I have to go to the whitest place in America — Utah.
What was Rock expecting from today?
It’ll be a cool day. It’s weird. I’ve never watched an inauguration. I’ve never watched anyone get sworn in. You know, it’s like Election Day and then you look up and somebody else is the president two months later. It was never like, “I can’t wait till tomorrow. Oh my god! They’re going to swear in Jimmy Carter!”…I’ll put it this way — like any business is going to be getting done while this guy is getting sworn in. Like I’m going to be in a meeting. Everything is going to stop for however long it takes. Hope they get to it — hope it’s not like I gotta listen to three different versions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” or something. I hope it’s not like Rosa Parks’ funeral, where everybody fucking speaks.
What is Rock expecting of Obama’s Presidency?
You know, if you’re the president you only have two jobs: peace and money. That’s it. I mean, it’s like, what did Clinton do? We were at peace and we had a budget surplus. That’s it. That’s the gig. The closer you get us to those two goals, you know, that’s pretty much the gig. Is that too much to ask for?
Is this a post-racial America?
Well, [racism is] never going to die. Maybe it won’t multiply. Is racism going to end? No. It’s not even race. People are always going to, you know, find something wrong with people who are not the exact same as them. That’s just what it is. Black, white, short, tall, religions, whatever. People are bad, man.
Aw, man. We thought racism was going to end and stuff. What a downer. But we’re still very much looking forward to Rock’s material over the next 4 years.
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