Bill Maher owes Jada Pinkett Smith — and bald people everywhere — an apology

Bill Maher has made a career of insulting people. It doesn’t matter if they’re on the left or the right. The dude is equal-opportunity when it comes to dishing out the disrespect.

So it should come as no surprise that Maher’s response to disrespect is to say, basically, “Buck up, you fuck-up.”

I haven’t weighed in on the Will Smith-Chris Rock slap fiasco because, to me, the response seems obvious. Rock was wrong to publicly diss Jada Pinkett Smith for a physical ailment, and Smith was wrong to slap him. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and there were definitely two wrongs here. I don’t care about the couple’s lifestyle, which frankly is neither my business nor my concern, and I don’t care about their celebrity status.

What I do care about is bullying. Rock bullied JPS by making fun of her physical condition, and Smith bullied Rock by slapping him.

It’s all bullshit.

But not to Maher, who thinks JPS should consider herself “lucky” to have alopecia, a condition that causes someone’s hair to fall out.

“If you are so lucky in life as to have that be your medical problem, just say ‘thanks God,’” Maher said on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. “It’s not life threatening. It's part of... aging.”

I’m bald. I’ve been going bald, gradually, since I was about 20. I wear hats at times to cover it up because I think I look better in them, and to protect my head from the sun. But going bald is not an inevitable part of aging. There are plenty of guys who don’t. (Ronald Reagan comes immediately to mind.) And while some women do experience hair loss, it’s not the norm, and full baldness is unusual.

In fact, alopecia is a condition that occurs in just 2 percent of the general population, both men and women, so it’s not “normal” at all.

Social stigma

On top of this, there is an unfair social stigma that goes with baldness and which is tied to shallow judgment of people that’s based on appearances. It’s far worse for women. It can open them up to ridicule, whispered or otherwise. People think there’s something wrong with them. Being bald is only “justified” for a woman if she has cancer, which becomes an excuse to feel sorry for her, rather than affirm her intrinsic beauty — hair or no hair.  

Maher might give JPS a pass if she had cancer, because it’s “life threatening.” Then, according to him, it would apparently be OK for her to feel self-conscious. Why? Because then he could pity her and feel superior that way — because he doesn’t have cancer — instead of feeling superior because he’s not bald?  

News flash, Mr. Bill: Something doesn’t have to be life threatening to be traumatic. And just because one person’s problem doesn’t seem as serious as others to you, you don’t get to condone bullying. Who made you judge and jury about what’s traumatic to people? Alopecia is not cancer. But diarrhea isn’t Ebola; that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant.

To JPS’s credit, she’s embraced her baldness. She’s not embarrassed by it, and I think that’s great.

What gives you the right to try to embarrass her, Mr. Maher? Maybe you think she should be embarrassed about it. Is that it? Do you want an excuse to make more jokes at her expense? And what gives you the right to do that?

Because you’re a hair-endowed white male “comedian” with a talk show who makes millions of dollars? Yeah, right. That makes it OK to be a bully in your mind, I guess.

Well, it’s not OK in mine, and I’d be willing to wager that a lot of other people aren’t OK with it either.