I suspect those in charge were counting on the misplaced hope that Smith’s name wasn’t in that envelope.
Certainly. And also worried about what he would do on camera if they interfered.
Except maybe that didn’t happen.
I’m having a really hard time believing the academy at their word when they say they told Will Smith (implied emphasis) “you HAVE to leave. NOW”.
I’m sure there are mixed messages and confusion (possibly intentional) about who the parties are and who is in charge - seems like a lot of people/entities. Who is “The Academy”, who is “Will Smith” (ha, seriously), is the production people who put on the show, part of the “The Academy.”
Plausible example, an official Academy members tells Will Smith’s agent that Will Smith needs to leave, and Will Smith doesn’t, in fact, leave. I reasonably interpret that as asking Will Smith to leave and since he ultimately did not, interpret that as refusal. Maybe the agent said no. In the world I live in, if you tell a person’s lawyer, you in fact told that person and there is no real distinction and it’s all perfectly normal to talk like that. I’m sure what actually happened will be some version of this.
Is Will Packer (who said Will Smith could stay) a part of “The Academy” ? The Academy statement makes no mention of what others told or did not tell Will Smith. I don’t really know, but if told me I could stay, that’s enough for me to rely on.
It’ll be half-truths and using your own versions and definitions of what you said you did and what you think the reaction to what you said was.
Three things wishes I have following this incident:
- I wish people would stop talking about alopecia as a “disease.” It’s not. It simply means hair loss. Statistically, more than half the men reading this have androgenetic alopecia: male pattern baldness. Almost all humans have some level of alopecia as we age.
I have lupus. It’s in remission, but I struggled with hair loss (aka alopecia) for a long time, as lupus caused inflammation of my hair follicles. You could hold your palm 4 inches over my scalp and feel the heat. My alopecia was caused by a medical condition, as some forms are. I did not go bald (or shave my head). Neither did Pinkett Smith. In fact, looking at her close-cropped scalp, I wish I’d had that much hair, and I was far from bald. From what she’s said, some of the thinning made a scar on her scalp more obvious, so she decided to shave her head. I respect her choice, as I’d have respected her choosing other options, but it was her choice, and it was not an inevitable one, as it is for some.
-
I wish people would stop saying Rock made a joke about JPS’s hair loss. He didn’t. He made a joke about her choice, the same choice MANY women have made for many reasons other than medical conditions: for movie roles, to make social statements, because they like the look. And it wasn’t even a mean-spirited joke: “Jada, I love ya. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it.” Tired, yes, lame, definitely. Cruel? Hardly. I was sensitive about my hair loss, but had I shaved my head (inadvisable, due to the inflammation) and someone had said that to me, I wouldn’t have been insulted.
-
I wish people would stop trying to justify the Academy’s pandering to Smith by bringing up past incidents where bad people were tolerated or even honored at the Oscars. The logic is weak. Refusing to allow enlightenment to change our behaviors means sacrificing justice for a servile devotion to past wrongs, It mistakes progress for hypocrisy.
That’s all, I guess.
Yes and no… Alopecia is distinct from, say, pattern hair loss, which is the typical kind of hair loss many people face as they age. (Half of all men and one quarter of all women experience this by age 50, I myself have it but only to a minor degree as a receding hair line, though I’m 5 years short of 50 so we’ll see.)
But yes, alopecia is not a disease, it’s a condition thought to be caused by an immune disorder which causes patchy or sometimes total hair loss. As I’m sure you’re aware, having dealt with it yourself.
I just wanted to clarify though, that alopecia isn’t synonymous with hair loss in general. Alopecia is much, much rarer than more common forms of hair loss, as it affects between 0.1-0.2% of the population and is equally distributed between men and women.
(Sorry about the hijack, I just wanted to avoid potential confusion here, as well-meaning as your words were, and in general very accurate.)
Looks like Will is up to his old tricks again.
OK, I get this. But if you have PW members there you ask them if Will Smith is getting an award and if so you send out the dancing bears to fill 5 minutes. Just leave the award out. That seems reasonable. But then again, it has to happen in real time.
Or just flat out read the envelope in silence and announce the award will be presented at a later date due to unforeseen circumstances. If Smith wants to throw temper tantrum number 3 then that can fill up the time slot.
His show in Atlanta sold out so quickly on Monday that the Fox Theater added a second night.
Another though occurred to me…
the Academy could have told the control booth to cut the feed and simply NOT aired Will Smith’s speech after he was announced the winner.
I’m sorry, but this is incorrect. Alopecia is not distinct from pattern hair loss. Typical hair loss that comes with aging is a type of alopecia. But don’t take my word for it:
Alopecia is the medical term for hair loss. Hair loss may occur naturally or it may be related to disease or the use of certain medications.
And
Male-Pattern baldness
This is the most common form of alopecia and it affects around 50% of men by time they reach the age of 50.
[source]
I can provide other sites, if you’d like.
The medical term for male pattern hair loss is androgenetic alopecia, or hair loss linked to the hormone androgen. Women can have this type of hair loss, too, although in women, it tends to cause hair thinning all over the scalp, as we see in Jada Pinkett Smith. (I am not saying androgenetic alopecia is the cause of JPS’s hair loss.)
Hope this helps.
The use of the term itself seems to medicalize the condition, no? It’s just a fancy word meaning “baldness.”
Fair enough, but I believe that what Pinkett Smith suffers from is specifically caused by the autoimmune disorder.
Hindsight is always 20/20. The problem was that “the Academy” did not produce the TV broadcast, and “the producer” was pretty much limited to showing what was happening on stage.
Take a look at any live news or sports program where something goes badly wrong – say a power failure at a sporting event where the lights go out. There’s no instant solution; the announcers fumble around for awhile while the producers try to decide whether to switch to another game, go to the studio and let those announcers try to fill time, or just hope the lights come back on.
In this case, probably the only person who had the actual authority to order Will Smith out was David Rubin, the President of the Academy. Rubin, whose actual profession is casting director, had already been slapped around by Academy members for daring to move some of the lesser categories out of the live telecast. Now he was stuck with the decision on whether to kick out one of Hollywood’s biggest names while simultaneously working with the telecast’s producer to reorder the show on the fly. Under those pressures, doing nothing and let the show go on, and perhaps hoping that Will Smith wouldn’t win, was certainly understandable, even if wrong.
Maybe, just maybe, a Lorne Michaels, who’s had decades of experience with live TV and crazy actors, would have figured out a better solution. But even Michaels didn’t throw Martin Lawrence out of studio 8-H after his infamous monologue. Instead, he let Lawrence continue on the show, whereupon Lawrence called Stuart Smalley/Al Franken an “ass pirate.”
No.
I have only read some articles which mention what he stated there.
I do not believe he is a victim and do assume he is driven. Few who reach his heights of accomplishment from his start are not both talented and driven. And maybe a bit lucky too. What drives a specific person can of course be complicated.
Androgenic. Not androgenetic. If we are going to stay very precise.
Yes alopecia literally is just the umbrella word for baldness.
But in real world use most health providers will use the word alopecia in isolation to refer to the alopecia areata to universalis spectrum. Male pattern baldness will usually be called that or if referred to as alopecia then the androgenic part is specified. Likewise traction alopecia always has the word traction attached to it.
I completely endorse your greater point though. YOU have a disease. Ms Smith has a condition and a very mild one at that, to which she has responded with a fashion choice.
Question to those who may know: the top award is not always based on merit alone. Sometimes the votes go to someone who has been around a while doing good work, well liked, but who has never been awarded the top prize before. The current work was very good but not necessarily the very best but they deserve it for the rest of what they have done and who they are. Skipping over a newer talent because they’ll likely be there again. Any of that at play for Smith’s win?
Why do we all have to post a long-ass message? Sometimes a simple phrase is enough to get your point across.
I guess it makes sense when one considers it’s such an unexpected act as to be beyond the producer’s ability to act fast enough to deal with.
Going forward the Academy is going to have to make it clear that such behavior will result in charges of trespassing and automatic disqualification of any awards.