The Ballad of Willy Smith

Poking his head through some craft paper? This guy plays by his own rules!

You’re sick in bed with a cold and you feel really shitty. You’ve just eaten a bowl of chicken noodle soup, chugged some OJ and swallowed a couple of Tylenol and you still don’t feel better. The only thing left to do is tune in to the one television program scientifically proven to cure the common cold: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. So you grab the remote, find the channel it’s on (because it’s always, always on somewhere), sit back and let Will, Hilary, Geoffrey and Uncle Phil help you laugh your way back to good health.  As you watch though, laughing mirthfully at Carlton attempts to get laid and Ashley’s numerous references to Tevin Campbell you fill a sad throb in the center of your heart.  It’s not your cold, it’s sorrow. Sorrow for the rotted greed-carcass that is Will Smith’s post-Prince career. It seems that after being a legitimate cultural icon and a pretty good spokesman for the hip-hop generation, Will Smith decided that it was time to sell out.

He didn’t start out as terrible but it was a slippery slope. Let’s take a look!

1. 1995- Bad Boys

Okay, he’s still awesome here and this movie is the shit.  No problems here. + 10 points.

2. 1997-Men In Black

You can try and look as badass as you want. Your ride at Universal Studios still sucks.

I didn’t see this movie cause I don’t like action that much and I like science fiction alien type stuff even less, but I know some people who enjoyed it.  That said that awful, awful song from this movie will live in infamy. -2 points

3. 1997- Gettin’ Jiggy With It

It was painful to even type those words, though not as painful as it is to listen to that song.  A song that, according to lyricsfreak.com required twelve songwriters to write it!  Twelve!  What happen to Parents Just Don’t Understand, Will?  Methinks YOU just don’t understand. The same goes for that other aural abortion of a ditty, “Miami.” Did the tourism board pay you for that, Will? Because when I landed at the Miami airport in 2003 that shit was playing on a constant loop on the loudspeakers all over the terminal. Luckily, I was already kind of drunk.

-8 points

4. 1999-Wild, Wild West

Not only did you butcher up an amazing Stevie Wonder song and make a stupid goddam pop-rap-song about being a cowboy out of it but you wasted the use of Salma Hayek’s cleavage in this crap movie that truly was the death rattle of my favorite decade. – 5 points

Oh cruel time, what have you wrought?

5. 2000-The Legend of Bagger Vance

Huh? What? You play the ghost of a dead golf caddy?  Oh, Will.  What would Jazz think?

-15 points

6. 2005-Hitch

Here you play an expert on dating who works it out so that the King of Queens somehow ends up bagging a supermodel. So dumb.  But you know what? I watched this one night was I stoned and it was too cold to go out and maybe it was the Northern Lights I smoked and the awesome fried rice that I ate while watching the film but I kinda dug it. + 5 points.

6. 2006 – The Pursuit of Happyness

My eyes have rolled all the way back and are now peering at my brain.

This sort of shameless, heart-string tugging garbage should be beneath you, Will.  Do you need the money that bad? Does Jada have an addiction to the eggs of American Bald Eagles or something?  Listen, I’m sure Carlton made enough from sales of this album to front you some dough until your cash flow situation cleared up.  There was no excuse for this, Will. None at all. And dragging your little son into this? Wow.

-1 million points

Grand Total: -1,000,015 Life points.  Jesus.

Well it’s quite a pickle you’re in.  I know you’re a millionaire several times over now, and have a lovely family but how can you sleep at night knowing that you pretended to be the ghost of a dead golf caddy, or were responsible for introducing the lyrics: “Women used to tease me/ Give it to me now nice and easy/ Since I moved up like George and Weezie” to our musical lexicon?  I’m not really sure what you can do to get out of this. I would recomend a Mickey Rourke-type comeback.  Do something you “really believe in” for absolutely no money and RESIST THE URGE TO PUT ANY OF YOUR MUSIC ON THE SOUNDTRACK. Please Will, do it for all of us who used to love you.

When I see what you’ve turned into, I feel like the one who’s life got flip-turned upside down!