That’s exactly my point. As it actually played out, it seems likely they wouldn’t have considered Smith a threat until he’d already delivered the slap, which took only an instant, and then he walked away.
My scenario about “working him over” wasn’t intended to contrast “only a slap” with a “real assault.” The point I had in mind was that a physical beatdown would have become obvious for what it was while it was still in progress.
I wonder how this whole thing would have played out if Sykes had made the G.I. Jane joke.
Bald jokes were a staple of The Dick Van Dyke Show.
This is one thing I don’t understand. Who IS the decision-maker? Doesn’t he or she make decisions instantly, as events unfold? Doesn’t security prep for a broad range of dangers, from bomb threats to an attack on stage? Some of the possible scenarios surely include some where a celebrity assaults another celebrity for whatever reason. Of course it’s unlikely, but it’s within the realm of possibility and therefore surely must have been considered and a protocol devised.
I don’t know how they do that stuff. What makes sense to me is that if I’m a security guard in the wings and one guy charges the stage and lays out a performer and starts kicking the shit out of him, like in my little hypothetical scenario above, there’s no question that I’m going to intervene as quickly as I can and as forcefully as I think I need to.
If it’s a scenario like the one that actually happened, and the attack is over and done with and the aggressor is halfway back to his seat while I’m still going “Huh? Wha?” then I’m not going to make the decision to drag someone of Will Smith’s professional stature out of the building. I’m going to hope someone up above me tells me to.
The director of the Oscars this year was Glenn Weiss.
No, I’ve never heard of him, either. Which is the problem, because while he (probably) had the authority to throw Smith out of the venue, Will Smith has a lot more power and influence in Hollywood overall. Weiss throws Will Smith out of the Oscars, and for the next couple years, all he hears is “Will Smith’s production company has invested very heavily in this production, and they’ve requested we go with a different director.” I can’t blame a guy for not wanting to risk his career like that.
Personally, I think Chris Rock showed way more class than Will Smith, restraining himself like that.
Will Smith comes across as really p-whipped in this, and I say that as a feminist. He’s laughing at the joke, gets the stink eye from his spouse, then has to get up and wallop Chris Rock so his wife won’t yell at him later? Yeah. Big man.
You’re joking, right? I like Ricky Gervais, but he’s a far bigger asshole than Chris Rock.
Having worked security, it’s safer and better to have a lot more people than you need. It helps ensure more compliance. One or two and the belligerent person might see it as a fight, especially if alcohol is involved.
The more I think about it, Chris Rock showed an unthinkable amount of restraint for a comic. For the past few days I just thought he was stunned into silence but he actively chose not to unlease on Will Smith and repeat… any number of the nasty things that the public had teased him about.
Of course Smith is getting it all from comedians right now though (who are circling Smith looking for a few minutes of fame). Rock could’ve ruined Smith’s night. And he passed.
Probably harder to restrain an old man when you can’t knock him down and sit on his chest, or put him in a headlock. Then as now, none of those guys holding Wayne back wanted to be at the center of a “Backstage security puts beloved elderly actor in hospital,” story.
That’s kind of my point. You don’t want to do those things. People can die. No matter how much of an asshole someone is being, you want to resolve the thing as peacefully as possible.
Right, I just meant, “Even more so, when the guy you’re restraining is rich and famous, as opposed to some random drunk at a bar.”
Oh yeah. Gotcha
It seems there is more history there than some of us (?) initially realized. Good luck untangling that.
I’m glad that they’re both men, both black, about the same age, both successful… What if, say, a young black woman struck an older white man? People would make it an age thing or a race thing or a gender thing. “If the man had struck the woman everyone would want hlim in jail but it’s just fine the other way around?” etc. No reason to muddy the water here…black on black, man on man, etc.
I looked for a transcript of Rock’s comments. I figured he was talking about various people around the room, not honing in one. Seems like he’d said what he had to say about Jada and moved on. In this video, he spends a little time on Denzel, then Javier, then Jada…then it looks like he’s moving on to other business.
He really did–he basically just accepted that his joke went over a line and he caught some shit over it and that’s something any comic is aware could happen. One thing though, Rock has always struck me as someone who’s probably done a fair amount of scrapping and knows how to take and give a punch and I have no doubt that if the two of them had gotten into it for real it would have been one helluva dustup of the broken face bones variety. All things considered, aside from the original joke being pretty shitty he showed a lot of class about the whole thing. Rock does not appear to be a whiny bitchass and deserves a fair bit of respect.
Not only fight. He was on live international television… with an open mic and an audience. After agreeing to move on he pauses for 2-5 seconds, shakes his head and says “oooo, I could…”
He could’ve brought Smith to tears. His whole family to tears. Aired out every nasty joke about the Smiths. That’s a comic’s natural instinct. Rock held his tongue, made a joke about this being an important night. Moved on. That’s wild. Smith was insanely vulnerable to Rock and he chose not to swing.
Worst part is that I suspect Smith will be telling himself that Rock was too skeert to retaliate. I’ve never been overly impressed with Will Smith and think that telling himself Rock had no comeback game would be right in his wheelhouse. Man thinks a lot of himself.
Now it seems the Academy asked Smith to leave the building after the slap. He refused and they let him stay – thereby covering both the Academy and Smith with yet another layer of chickenshit.
Nope, I doubt that’s what he thought. I think he thought he was on live TV with a big star who just assaulted him and security no where in sight. Best just to diffuse the situation and get on with things.
He didn’t catch some shit, he was assaulted. No comic accepts that as a part of doing their job.
The Academy is a diffuse organization with hundreds of members. I doubt they had ever anticipated having any kind of a procedure for such a circumstance. There’s no way you could come up with a procedure during a live broadcast.