Gettin' Jiggy Wit It

Thanks, Will Smith, for making my day twice, in completely unrelated ways.

This first – this quote from an interview with Parade:

"We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. She can’t cut my hair but that’s her hair. She has got to have command of her body. So when she goes out into the world, she’s going out with a command that it is hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.”

I love how much he wants to empower his kids. I love that he's trying to create individuals who learn how to make actual choices. And I love that he wants his daughter to be a strong woman, who doesn't just replace her dad with a partner one day.

And secondly, for this moment on the Graham Norton Show (thanks for the tipoff, Karen):

Yeah, I sang along too.

Also note: I can't think about Will Smith anymore without thinking of this stellar Grantland article Bill Simmons wrote about a year ago called "The Movie Star", about how Will Smith is the only true movie star working today, and how that has been his dedicated goal above all else. It really is a fascinating look into how success works, and how Smith was able to essentially game the Hollywood system. I mean, the mere fact alone that I remember an internet article from a year ago speaks to its potency.