When the dust settles, Smith, and maybe Jada, should be kicked out of the Academy. Presenters, hosts and performers should not have to worry about being physically attacked while on-stage doing their job. At the very least the Academy should make sure of that, and if a member of this fancy-pants club does assault a performer/host/presenter, they should be kicked out of the club.
Personally, I enjoy Rock’s work much more than Smith’s, and any good feelingsi had that were left over from his work on the FPoBA are kaput. I wouldn’t care if I never saw Will again, or if he simply reclused to his mansion to just be a weirdo with his weirdo wife and kids.
I dislike award shows and did not see this, or read the full thread.
But if it hasn’t been said already… Just look what happened to Will Smith the last time he “got in one little fight”….
I’m just glad Jazzy Jeff wasn’t around to see this. Seriously, if it was real anger, he probably needs to relax, even if Jada was the subject. Roasting has been a thing at these things for a while, no? Who needs shades of Trump or W at the White House Correspondents evenings? (I think Colbert should get to host the Oscars.)
Only the ones he’s planning to insult in his 2 minutes on stage to present the Best Documentary award.
This isn’t the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of Will Smith, it’s an award show. An award show that Rock hosted a few years back and poked fun of Jada and Will even though they weren’t even there. Her husband gets recognized for his professional achievements and in order to support him, she has to subject herself to some comedian’s random jabs about her appearance? WTF is that nonsense?
Rock’s joke was over the line, but Smith’s action was WAY over the line, IMHO. Who gets to just hop up on a stage and assault a performer, no matter what was said, then strut back to his seat? There are many other ways to express displeasure in a public space like that, and getting violent is not a good one. And why was Smith not escorted out of the building afterward? Oh, because he was going to be one of the winners. Looks like the Academy “does” condone violence.
Smith’s whole chivalrous chest-beating is wearisome, and makes his wife look like a defenseless girl playing the whole “woe is me” card, who cannot stand-up for herself and needs her man to “do something” about her discomfort (I doubt she is really like that). They both look pathetic at this point, and I am sure Rock will get plenty of mileage out of his feud now with the Smiths.
Despite in some ways aligning emotionally to LHoD’s comments that not every physical altercation is a big deal, or equally wrong . . . fundamentally one of the core components of safety in the modern era is that there is low/no tolerance for hitting people. Even if they say mean things.
Maybe there are too many jerks in the world, and it just feels good to see one of them hit. I get it. But you know who is generally doing the hitting? People who feel like they can get away with it, people who feel that their victims don’t pose a similar physical threat to them, and people whose only criteria is “I felt angry enough to do it.”
All of this after-the-fact equivocating about whether Smith was justified in hitting Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife because it was just so so over the line that wasn’t violence an appropriate response? I don’t get it. And find it distasteful.
I’m glad there’s legal consequences for enacting physical violence upon another person, and am fundamentally uninterested in how mean the victim was being before they got hit. Maybe there are edge cases where physical violence is justified- a one-off distasteful joke is miles away from that line.
Jada has short/bald hair, so because of that, she could be in a sequel to GI Jane, since Demi Moore had to have short/bald hair as a Navy SEAL in that movie? (ie, you have short hair similar to Demi Moore’s in GI Jane). Is this essentially the joke or am I missing something (i’m aware of the hair loss condition).
With all due respect and consideration to everyone’s medical conditions, it’s not a comedian’s job to zigzag their routine through people’s medical conditions and serious issues. It wasn’t a great joke, but no, even Jada getting up herself to slap him would have been equally appalling. No one should respond to words with physical violence.
I will also point out that both Will and Jada are celebrities, by their own happy and willing participation. They are always in the public eye and the subject of rumor and discourse, and sometimes poor jokes.
Will Smith’s act has nothing to do with Jada or alopecia. It’s about him and what he perceives as his jurisdiction over her existence. This jurisdiction was exercised last night by way of ‘defending her honor’. Under different circumstances, it could license him to hurt her.
I am very sorry, but everything can be made a joke of, and that’s what free expression means. No one should respond to words with violence. Last night’s was a very mild and - to some people - morally justified use of violence against words. But if you start allowing this, you know exactly what you will find down the road, and not that far ahead either.
I understand the gravity of self image to women, but so is the dignity of some prophet to religion adherents. A joke about their prophet, a pretty tasteless one too, like those of Charlie Hebdo, does not license any act of violence, no matter how mild, now matter how sensible and necessary and well-timed like a man defending his wife on the world’s biggest stage. It simply does not. The outcome of this is that you had an A-lister, a globally known star, from the slums of Cairo to the skyscrapers of Japan - you had that global star show the entire world that it’s OK to slap people in response to annoying words. Please see how terrible this is.
I understand the suffering of cancer (I lost my sister to a pretty nasty type of it), but there is absolutely no excuse for what happened last night. I wish you the best.
I think you guys calling this a light slap unintended to cause real damage are being fooled by how well Rock took the hit. This wasn’t a play slap like an aristocrat challenging another to a duel. Will put his hips into it - it was meant to cause the upper range of what damage a slap can do. As slaps go it was quite hard.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Will Smith is banned from next year and someone else presents Best Actress. Honestly, he should receive a 5-year ban from the show. I don’t think they have it in them, though.
Totally. And a sucker-slap if that is such a thing. Rock had no idea that was coming. I think he kind of laughed when Smith came up on stage like, “Oh, we’re doing the wag your finger at me act or something.” Rock was clearly shocked and he recovered amazingly well.
I’m tell you all. I really respect how well Rock handled it.
If that had happened and Smith could not accept his Oscar and make his speech since he was removed from the theater, at least that would have been some sort of punishment.
