Althouse: "I've always told Will: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay."

April 6, 2013

"I've always told Will: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay."

"Because at the end of the day, Will is his own man. I'm here as his partner, but he is his own man. He has to decide who he wants to be and that's not for me to do for him. Or vice versa."

61 comments:

tiger said...: So Will has the same set set-up as
Dan Savage.

Who knew?

(Well we *all* do now...); 4/6/13, 12:44 PM
Anonymous said...: A star is just a big ball of flaming gas.; 4/6/13, 12:48 PM
Anonymous said...: Will Smith is also a Scientologist.; 4/6/13, 12:53 PM
ndspinelli said...: His trysts are probably w/ dudes. NTTAWWT.; 4/6/13, 12:57 PM
jacksonjay said...: I'm thinkin this is all connected!

Busy single mom-Michelle!
She a hot AG-Barry! Reggie Love!
Separate vacays for all the Obamas!
Best pals, Will and Jada steppin out!
Dems stumbling over each other on SSM!

We are now in the re-defin 21st Century!; 4/6/13, 1:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Smith does have an appealing screen persona, like Cruise and Travolta.; 4/6/13, 1:02 PM
jacksonjay said...: I forgot about the NFL's desire to redefine itself in the 21st Century! Progress!
Forward!; 4/6/13, 1:08 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Polygamy is a pretty common practice among many African blacks.

So, you could say that they have a traditional relationship for their ethnic group.

That's a possibility.; 4/6/13, 1:11 PM
Tim said...: I'll have to run this by my wife and see if she goes for it.

I'll ask when she's running late for work...; 4/6/13, 1:17 PM
YoungHegelian said...: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay.

Whatever may be the nature of their marital relationship is their own business, but let me tell you, there's no way in hell that I want to let all the sociopathic & just plain evil assholes get away with the gentle self-appraisal of if you can look at yourself in the mirror.
Far too many guys in history can murder their fellows without losing a wink of sleep.

Hell, no. Assholes, (and I'll bet Will Smith is one, albeit not a murderous one) need the not-so- gentle external appraisal of a Louisville Slugger upside the cranium; 4/6/13, 1:20 PM
Anonymous said...: From the article:

Marriage is whatever two consenting adults say it should be. If they can make it 16 years, why should we question them. Rock on Will and Jada! Keep doing what you are doing!

Are we back to redefining marriage again?; 4/6/13, 1:22 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: We seem to have checked our morals at the door when it comes to homosexuality, but we still have a hell of a lot of trouble with people who have more than one lover.

As has often been pointed out, these two inclinations are at odds with one another.; 4/6/13, 1:22 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: As yes, open. Yet another word that has no business anywhere near the word marriage.; 4/6/13, 1:26 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: creeley23 said...

Are we back to redefining marriage again?

Why stop now?; 4/6/13, 1:30 PM
edutcher said...: I'm betting Agent J has made his last MIB movie.; 4/6/13, 1:30 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Wow. What a woman. Talk like that would make a man out of anyone.

Except for Shouting Thomas. Nothing would make a man out of him.; 4/6/13, 1:30 PM
Bender said...: If adultery is now a fundamental right, as is claimed in the repeal of adultery laws, then that is just another reason why the purported arguments for "same sex marriage" do not also dictate the allowance of polygamy.

If a married man can have a girlfriend on the side, then what justification is there for not allowing them to formalize their "love" in "marriage"?; 4/6/13, 1:35 PM
YoungHegelian said...: It really sounds so much hotter & a la mode to say "We have an open marriage" than to say "you know, we really don't like each other very much & it would be just too expensive & bothersome to divorce"

This has been a issue that has haunted the upper classes since, like, forever, it's just that often the Church & proper society got in the way of saying "We're adulterously screwing other people" to any but one's BFFs.; 4/6/13, 1:38 PM
George M. Spencer said...: The author of that article Sasha Brown-Worsham yesterday posted an essay about her taking showers with her son, age not given, and her husband showering with their six-year-old daughter.

Nothing wrong with that so long as Dad can look at him self in the mirror and be okay. Whatever.; 4/6/13, 1:54 PM
Basta! said...: There have long been rumors that Jada nd Will are primarily same-sex oriented, so that each is serving as the other's beard.

If true, their *marriage* would have to be open.; 4/6/13, 2:01 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: According to a commenter there who claims to have watched the interview, Jada did not sound happy about it, looking as though she was trying to control a welling of negative emotion.

I'm guessing she accepts this because it's better than blowing up the family.

What a jerk. (Not her, but him.); 4/6/13, 2:09 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "According to a commenter there who claims to have watched the interview, Jada did not sound happy about it, looking as though she was trying to control a welling of negative emotion."

I can see that in the words alone.

She's saying I want him on his own to see that this is not good, and it's not for me to say. That's a very subordinate attitude in one way, but it could be said from a strong position of someone who believes deeply in individual autonomy. I am free and you are free and I only want you as a free person choosing me. It's a bind!; 4/6/13, 2:20 PM
rhhardin said...: Imus's Bernard McGuirk commented, "That's my kind of women!"; 4/6/13, 2:26 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: So, the issue here, Althouse, is whether she's subordinate or strong?

The feminist obsession with pecking order is what's really important here?

Subordination is always assumed to be evil?; 4/6/13, 2:29 PM
jr565 said...: Bender wrote:
If a married man can have a girlfriend on the side, then what justification is there for not allowing them to formalize their "love" in "marriage"?
Love and benefits?; 4/6/13, 2:29 PM
rhhardin said...: The way out of the bind is give him what he's looking for at home, if he's going elsewhere.

That being a regular show of being satisfied with him.; 4/6/13, 2:29 PM
jr565 said...: Playas just got to be playas. Best that the ladies learn that. SOme are ok with it.; 4/6/13, 2:30 PM
rhhardin said...: It's the flip side of any vagina will do.

Yours will do.; 4/6/13, 2:30 PM
jr565 said...: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay.

Yeesh, thats a scary thought. Lets follow the process. I like to kill prostitutes, AND I can look at myself in the mirror and be ok. Ergo, I can do whatever I want.

The Ted Bundy's of the world must be elated. I bet Hitler had no problem looking himself in the mirror. And in fact, most people don't, even people who feel guilty. THe only thing that might cause you trouble looking in the mirror is if you are so hideously unattractive that looking at your face gives you phystical pain. Or, unless you are a Medusa and turn to stone when faced with your own expression.
Short of that, you can look in the mirror just fine.

What a horrible, horrible horrible moral compass.; 4/6/13, 2:34 PM
jr565 said...: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay.

So, if Will liked having sex with his boy, but was able to look himself in the mirror, Jada would be ok with it? As long as Will was ok with it?
Sociopaths are ok with whatever it is they do, therefore they can do whatever it is that they want. Right Jada?; 4/6/13, 2:36 PM
Petunia said...: Mrs. Smith's standard is no standard at all.

As for same-sex marriage: I wonder if the gays and lesbians who choose to get married will have a problem with being judged by the same standards as married heterosexuals? Like, cheating on your spouse is wrong? And if you want out, you have to jump through a whole bunch of legal hoops to do so?

Somehow I suspect that many of them will object to being judged by the standards of traditional marriage, even though marriage is what they claim to want.

I have a gay friend who's constantly bitching that he can't get married. So far I have diplomatically refrained from pointing out that he would now be on husband #4 or 5, and would have gone right down the bankruptcy path with #4, who then cheated on and dumped him.; 4/6/13, 2:44 PM
chickelit said...: Being OK with your own image in the mirror is essentially the age-old tale of Narcissus:

And slyly Death's coercive rumour
In the silence starts:
A friend is the old old tale of Narcissus,
not to be born is the best for man;
An active partner in something disgraceful.
Change your partner, dance while you can.
~W.H. Auden; 4/6/13, 2:50 PM
carrie said...: I liked it better in the old days when stars lives were secret. Stardom corrupts, money corrupts, and money also makes spouses put up with things that otherwise would end a marriage/partnership.; 4/6/13, 2:51 PM
AllenS said...: I wonder at which point in their marriage that Hillary just threw up her hands and came to the same conclusion as Jada.; 4/6/13, 2:53 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I've never understood what Smith is doing with her... she's no attorney general... if you get my drift.

The only way it makes sense, like the Obamas, the Smiths is an arrangement contingent upon his success. She covers for him, while he gives her a life of comfort and security in exchange.; 4/6/13, 3:13 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Why is everyone jumping to the conclusion that they aren't monogamous? I've read both the link and the link that the link linked, and all that's definitively there is how she views what he'd do, or rather, how he should evaluate his actions - not what they are.

First off, there's nothing wrong with that. Morals mean nothing unless they are something by which you define yourself, not something you're coerced into. Denying that is like saying that laws aren't written to keep criminals in line, but the law-abiding and ethically conscious. Completely nonsensical.

Second, who's to say this means that he doesn't stay "faithful"?

Third - and everything else aside... the "even so" argument - lifelong monogamy is probably impractical for a majority of people and was instituted as a way of enforcing a partnership designed to raise children from your late teens to your expected death or decline by age forty or so. Not for a much longer life with many more relative comforts, less emphasis on reproduction as the most important way to impact posterity and many more ways of relating to people to explore.; 4/6/13, 3:15 PM
William said...: I don't know anything about Will Smith's personal life, and this comment is not directed at him....When is there a going be a bisexual pride day? When will bisexuals be allowed to come out of the closet and proudly proclaim their identity?.....I have read about guys like Cole Porter, Oscar Wilde, Cary Grant, John Cheever. These men were died in the wool bisexuals who enjoyed the heterosexual side of their coinage. Bisexuality has now replaced homosexuality as the love that dare not speak its name.; 4/6/13, 3:15 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Hi is a mediocre actor at best... but he wants blockbuster roles... He doesn't need to be much of an actor to get those. Also, its easer to get those roles if you lead a relatively free scandal personal life... and you happen to be black... and closet gay... or something ;); 4/6/13, 3:19 PM
Renee said...: Jada, puts up with abuse.

Much like when I was a young woman and I would be 'OK' with my boyfriend looking at porn.

It's abuse.And women deserve better.; 4/6/13, 3:54 PM
Moose said...: How do one equate looking at porn as "abuse"?; 4/6/13, 4:01 PM
Darleen said...: Jada sounds more like she's trying to convince herself ..

It rings of what one hears from a woman who has been living with a man for years when anyone asks why they haven't gotten married ... "it's just a piece of paper" "a state certificate won't change our love" "we are closer because we have the freedom to leave"

You can see in their eyes they are trying desperately to convince themselves rather than face it that said man just is satisfied with having someone do the heavy lifting at home & free to act single outside of it.

User/usee; 4/6/13, 4:02 PM
Renee said...: Me. I call it abuse and I'm better off with a man that doesn't look at.

What was sad was that I saw young men with talent waste their life with it.

Not my husband and not my sons. No way.; 4/6/13, 5:15 PM
The Godfather said...: The attitude expressed by the writer (I really don't think it's possible to judge from the article what the Smiths really think or do) represents a greater threat to marriage than gay marriage ever could cause. She CELEBRATES infidelity. It's possible (sometimes) to excuse infidelity, but to hold it up as an ideal is just evil.; 4/6/13, 5:38 PM
Synova said...: I didn't see anything quoted there as saying that either of them were having sex with someone else.

And then the author goes on to say that the author is a jealous type and wouldn't like it but that her husband let her "explore" and have male friends and travel and what-not, but that she wouldn't do *that* because that would hurt him.

So... I can't even tell what she's talking about. Sex? Or just respecting your spouse and not trying to control their life. That seems pretty normal, doesn't it?

It's sort of a "thing" to joke about "letting" him do this or that. (Less often a joke if it's him "letting" her do this or that.) But it almost seems like the author is comparing a non-controlling marriage with the "normal" alternative, which would be?; 4/6/13, 5:41 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: I'm ok with not looking at porn as long as the woman I'm with would never look at glamour magazines, fashion fads, home renovation options, or any of the signifiers of wealth and status that she would be tempted to reduce me, as a male, to, Renee.

Too bad society has nothing to say about that though, right?; 4/6/13, 5:46 PM
Synova said...: What does porn have to do with home renovation or glamour magazines?

Does watching HGTV mean you don't measure up, somehow?; 4/6/13, 5:49 PM
Renee said...: O Ritmo,

Guess what, I don't engage in those activities.

But you're right.; 4/6/13, 5:52 PM
Synova said...: Women don't mind being sex objects... they *want* to be the sex object for their husband. But if he's got other sex objects you're out of options, unless you dump him and go find someone else.; 4/6/13, 5:52 PM
Renee said...: Synova, Some women always have to re-wallpaper the bathroom every five years or replace a perfectly working refrigerator because they just want a new one.; 4/6/13, 5:53 PM
Synova said...: Renee, I don't do that. Also, I'm a terrible housekeeper.

But I've often thought that women/people who do have some little project in the house every little bit find it easier to keep up interest in keeping the house pretty and nice.

No doubt it's possible to be utterly ridiculous and spend more than you've got, but fresh wallpaper or paint isn't new tile and backsplashes.

(I still have the last homeowners window treatments up, and we've lived here 10 years.); 4/6/13, 6:03 PM
jr565 said...: O Ritmo wrote:
Third - and everything else aside... the "even so" argument - lifelong monogamy is probably impractical for a majority of people and was instituted as a way of enforcing a partnership designed to raise children from your late teens to your expected death or decline by age forty or so

I guess Ritmo is coming up with the rationalizations he'll use when he gets caught cheating?; 4/6/13, 6:13 PM
jr565 said...: O Ritmo wrote:
First off, there's nothing wrong with that. Morals mean nothing unless they are something by which you define yourself, not something you're coerced into.

You don't have to be coerced into them to recognize right from wrong. If you are saying people define their own morals, well then, could a serial killer not define his own morals? is serial killing wrong, or only subjectively so?; 4/6/13, 6:16 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: What does porn have to do with home renovation or glamour magazines?

Access to a lavish lifestyle - or at least a lifestyle as lavish as one can hope for - is the female equivalent of porn. Conservatives understand how men represent access to resources and women represent access fertility, so glamour/wealth porn is the other side of objectification and reductionism coin that sex porn represents to men.

Renee, to her great credit, gets this. I don't see any reason to continue debating it with you if someone honest and fair enough to admit that does, right off the bat.

Does watching HGTV mean you don't measure up, somehow?

HGTV does an admittedly terrific job of "humanizing" their style/decor drive with young, idealistic and close couples who convey warmth in their relationships. So that's a bit mitigating. In much the same way a very graphic or sexualized scene depicted by actors purposely meant to portray a close, loving and tight-knit couple would be mitigating.

But the latter doesn't seem to happen all that much - at least not that I'm aware of. I'm not sure why.; 4/6/13, 7:00 PM
chickelit said...: What does porn have to do with home renovation or glamour magazines?

"This Old House" is like G.I.L.F. porn. Got it.; 4/6/13, 7:13 PM
Synova said...: Apparently, porn is addictive for some (many?) men who then "waste their life" or else turn into the creep who gets access to the computers on campus and sits hunched over the monitor so intently giving off super-creep vibes. Thinking in terms of sex only when it comes to women would make it difficult or impossible to have a relationship, too.

But I should hope that a man thinks about his wife in terms of sex. I should hope that a wife wants to be pretty (glamour) and keep a nice house.

If your wife wants huge presents all the time and constantly needs nicer stuff in the house... you can tell her NO. (Unless she's paying the bills, in which case she can buy whatever she wants to buy.) If your husband just wants more hours spent watching porn on the internet... what?; 4/6/13, 7:36 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/6/13, 8:07 PM
Known Unknown said...: Really want to talk about this?; 4/6/13, 8:22 PM
Known Unknown said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/6/13, 8:22 PM
Big Sis said...: When did feminists start endorsing this?

Listen to me, baby, you gotta understand
You're old enough to know the makings of a man
Listen to me, baby, it's hard to settle down
Am I asking too much for you to stick around?

Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that's you
Won't you wait? But 'til then

When I see lips beggin' to be kissed
(Stop)
I can't stop
(Stop)
I can't stop myself
(Stop, stop)

Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again

Nature's takin' over my one-track mind
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool
For the time being, baby, live by my rules

When I settle down
I want one baby on my mind
Forgive and forget
And I'll make up for all lost time

If she's put together fine
And she's readin' my mind
(Stop)
I can't stop
(Stop)
I can't stop myself
(Stop, stop)

Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again
And again and again and again

Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again

There's a chapel in the pines
Waiting for us, around the bend
Picture in your mind
Love forever, but 'til then

If she gives me a sign
That she wants to make time
(Stop)
I can't stop
(Stop)
I can't stop myself
(Stop, stop)

Lightning's striking again
Lightning's striking again
And again and again and again
Lightning's striking again
And again and again and again

Read more: LOU CHRISTIE - LIGHTNIN' STRIKES LYRICS; 4/6/13, 11:38 PM
n.n said...: Will Smith should not need to hide behind an "open marriage". Now that a democratic consensus has seen fit to normalize relationships which do not fulfill biological imperatives, and do not promote evolutionary fitness, there is no justification to continue arbitrary distinctions between sexual and platonic relationships, and discriminate against diversity of kinds and forms, numbers and combinations.

It's time for Smith and all the others to finally come out of the closet. Society has progressed to accept all your peculiar quirks and fetishes.

That said, why do we continue to arbitrarily discriminate against men and women based on their age or stage of development? A human life evolves from conception to grave. Embrace the rainbow!; 4/7/13, 12:24 AM
Moose said...: Porn's bad only until women start looking at it. Then it's an "empowering" act.; 4/7/13, 2:58 AM