The Slap Heard Around The World
Will Smith slaps Chris Rock and unsurprisingly, America is divided.
First of all, Chris Rock has a chin. That was about the only positive that we can take away from yet another wild night in Hollywood history.
Now, I’m sure everyone has seen the video, and the joke that Chris made about Jada Pinkett-Smith. That isn’t the point of this post. What I am more interested in is the reaction that everyone seemed to have on social media, and the mentality that most people seem to have about Hollywood celebrities.
For one, the joke was not violence. There is this weird notion in these very strange times that words can be violence. People all over the internet just had to add their two-cents (as I’m giving my own two-cents) and say that the joke Chris said was akin to the slap that Will delivered to the left side of his face. This is incredibly moronic, and in my opinion, when we conflate words with violence, we devalue the meaning of violence. Just like when we call people racist, bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, etc. in instances when they are not. These blanket terms and their use in this era of internet clout and identity politics, actually don’t help us make any progress. The finger becomes pointed in too many directions, and often missed the actual target.
Words are not violence. Plain and simple. The only way in which words even reach close proximity to violence is when someone comes out and seriously calls for people to go out and commit acts of violence against specific individuals or groups of individuals, and that is a crime. However, even that, the act of calling for violence, is not actual violence. I don’t mean to pile on, but what happened to Jada’s one true love, Tupac Shakur (legend, Jada probably killed Pac and Biggie, just saying), was violence, not some G.I. Jane joke.
Then we come to the slap, an actual act of violence, and somehow, it was actually up for debate as to whether or not it was justified. There were a few people who were doing their best to come up with the most wild take, mostly “Republicans”, the kings of the dorks, as they just could not seem to stomach the shear blood and gore of a swift slap across the face. Meanwhile, most of them would have no problem if they saw a post on Facebook saying that the local police department was “cleaning up the streets” by putting together a hit squad, and roaming the city, and executing every homeless person living under an underpass. I mean what the hell is going in in this country? On the other side of the coin, there were plenty of people claiming that Will was 100% justified in his actions, an equally moronic take. The reasoning seemed to be that he was defending his wife’s honor, and that Chris had no right to make a joke about her appearance, as she suffers from an autoimmune disorder called alopecia (a disease that causes hair loss). I mean, one could say that the joke was slightly in poor taste, but it seemed like Will disagreed with me, at least initially. All that it really took was one dirty look from Jada for Will to storm on to the stage. People are literally starving in the streets and you have an estimated net worth of $350 million, just take the joke. I guess money can’t get rid of insecurity.
Many people were trying to claim that this was “staged” or fake. In my eyes, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Just looking at Will’s facial expressions, and the tone in which he screamed “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!”, everyone should have know that it was as real as it gets. What we saw was the dark side of a man synonymous with positivity and being the most “commercially viable” person on the planet. Well, maybe the second, behind Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The man that delivered the most insane spoken-word poetry performance of all time just before kickoff in this year’s Super Bowl. Will is the polar opposite of Tupac when it comes to his rap career, another mark against him in Jada’s eyes, I’m sure.
Will seemed to completely snap. He has been going through the gauntlet these past few years, with Jada dragging him on her show “Red Table Talk”, where she admitted to having an “entanglement” with August Alasina, amongst other embarrassing moments. Maybe Jada could take a page out of Will’s book and start defending his honor? What we saw was a broken man, and a Scientologist. Which is insane. I haven’t really heard anyone bring this up. The man is a member of a Hollywood cult that was started by a fiction writer. They believe that some dude named Xenu, who was the dictator of the “Galactic Confederacy”, brought billions of his people to Earth in a Spaceship that looks like a commercial airliner 75 million years ago. This story of Xenu is considered part of the church’s secret “Advanced Technology”. I guess scientologists truly are in touch with reality.
This gets into my overarching point about Hollywood in general, almost everyone in that entire industry is insane. They make movies and television show to tell the rest of the country how bad we are, meanwhile executives and people at the top have enjoyed decades of getting away with the most egregious acts of sexual abuse, murder, pedophilia, racism, and everything in between.
Do people not realize that these people, mainly actors and actresses, get paid millions of dollars for pretending to be other people for a living? Why would anyone assume that the way they appear in interviews or red carpets is a representation of who they are in private? In my opinion this speaks to the rotten nature of our country, and some of the people in it. When you look inside yourself, and discover who you really are, you are able to recognize parts of yourself in other people. I see absolutely zero part of myself when I look at the Hollywood “elites”. The fact that so many people do, shows how little work people have done on themselves, and how desperate some people are for validation from the outside world. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see anything wrong with someone delivering an incredible performance on the big screen. It is art at the end of the day, and there are many people in Hollywood who are incredibly talented. The art should be appreciated, and that is about it. We shouldn’t be taking life advice from a group of people who made the most out of touch video of all-time, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Remember that? A bunch of A to B list celebrities recorded a black and white, heartfelt video of themselves in their Beverly Hills and Calabasas mansions saying, in essence, that they wouldn’t tolerate racism anymore, the key word being “anymore”. All the while, millions of Americans were feeling the economic wrath of Covid-19, and cities across the country were literally on fire. The same group of people, of which one braindead lady hopped up on pills wrote and performed a heartfelt poem to Vladimir Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine. “If only I was your mother, you would have been so loved”. Jesus Christ.
Then we have the issue of the Oscars deciding to let Will stay. If committing an assault on live television for the whole world to see isn’t grounds for removal, then what is? He shouldn’t have been allowed to stay, but the most insane part of the entire evening was his heartfelt, emotional speech upon accepting his first Academy Award for his performance as Richard Williams in the film King Richard. A film, in which he plays the father of Serena and Venus Williams. Then people APPLAUDED.
It really makes you wonder, what happens at those parties everyone talks about. If a live assault on the host receives almost no reaction, and then 20 minutes later, the same man who committed the assault cries on stage while comparing himself to a character he played that “defends his family” while accepting an award seems like normal behavior, what would be abnormal behavior?
I guess what I am really trying to say is that what Will did was wrong, and anyone trying to say it wasn’t is a moron. Any kind hearted, sane person doesn’t react to a joke by physically assaulting someone. That should have been it, that should have been the entire take. The fact that there was any room for debate, is incredibly concerning.
Overall, that was incredible television. I wonder how they will up the stakes for next years Academy Awards? Maybe an execution? Thats the only way I would tune in.