By now, everyone has heard that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at last night's Academy Awards show. And I think we all heard the reason for that slap -- Rock made a faux pas "joke" about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will's wife, doing a GI Jane 2 turn -- was dude really unaware Jada has alopecia???
The reactions have run the gamut from Sunny Hostin's admonition to Smith to "Use your words!" to Joy Behar's, "Comedians are in danger everywhere. They (audience members) want us to be edgy, they want us to go out there and say things that other people are just thinking. They want us to take a risk and then they get mad." (Eye roll). Tiffany Haddish loved the slap.
There were alot of charges of toxic masculinity, and I would not disagree. Chris Rock did not press charges, and the Oscars committee will conduct an investigation. Yep.
My reaction? I would like to offer a suggestion. A suggestion on how to handle just such a situation in the future that does not involve violence, but has the admirable effect of making an asshole look like an asshole, and feel like an asshole. And Mr. Smith, I am shocked you didn't think of this yourself, being that you were involved, albeit peripherally, with the Miyagiverse, being a producer of the 2010 remake of Karate Kid:
Today Will Smith offered an apology to Chris Rock, which was a better apology than the one he offered to the Oscars Academy last night. Myself, I'm more than half-suspicious that Smith's outburst, and the firestorm of reaction surrounding it, were just a cheap way to gin up some buzz around the Academy Awards, and perhaps awards shows in general, which are suffering an understandable (zzzzz) plunge in ratings of late. Good luck with that. Sigh.
In passing, I wonder if the slap will, consciously or subconsciously, trigger a certain segment of the Caucasian persuasion, the ones who are always a little afraid of the "angry black man" (angry white men are neither scary nor prevalent, right? /s), or if their take-away will more center on Rock's pacific reaction (Whoopi about Rock, “I do think it’s wonderful that Chris did not take it to that other place that he could have done," i.e., hit back). IOW, he turned the other cheek -- yeah, he should have -- that joke was not only in poor taste, as many have said, but in poor judgement, rising for me to the level of one of those Things You Just Do Not Say. Was it punishable by a slap or punch? Nah, let The Universe do what it will -- if Mr. Rock were to develop a disfiguring autoimmune condition in the future, for example, perhaps we should not be too surprised.
I think that Smith's intemperate feelings could have been more wisely satisfied by his verbal outburst, "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth," followed by maybe a mention in his Oscar acceptance speech minutes later of his wife's courageous battle with automimmune alopecia. Then the court of public opinion would have gotten involved judging Chris Rock's comment, and condemning him, as it is now condemning Will Smith, and the narrative would be where it belongs, namely that appearance-shaming is a form of bullying, not to be done in a decent society. That is where the focus truly needs to be here.
https://www.salon.com/2022/03/28/the-view-chris-rock-will-smith-oscars-slap/
