Oscars 2022: Will Smith slapping Chris Rock unacceptable in any other workplace
Hollywood preaches its moral superiority, but the 94th Academy Awards saw celebrities leap to their feet to applaud a man they’d just witnessed slap a peer. Vote in our poll.
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Is Hollywood the only place in the world where someone can commit an act of violence and then get a standing ovation?
For years now, Hollywood award shows have become a lightning rod for celebrities and the academy to preach from on high about what makes a good person - think climate activism, promoting diversity and gender balance.
Yet, on their night of nights, some of those same celebrities leapt to their feet to applaud a man who engaged in behaviour that would not be acceptable in any workplace.
The 94th Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood was full of many good and powerful moments.
Coda, a heartfelt film about a girl who is the only hearing person in her family wins Best Film. New Zealand director Jane Campion becomes only the third female in Oscars history to win the award for best Director. Icon Liza Minnelli even graced us with her presence.
However that has all been overshadowed by a horrific display of the most toxic type of masculinity.
In a time when the Oscars are struggling to maintain their position as a cultural touchstone, the 94th Academy Awards will now go down in history as the ugliest ever after Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock on live TV after he made a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved hair.
During the ceremony, while presenting an award for Best Documentary, Rock said he was looking forward to seeing Pinkett Smith in “GI Jane 2” – referencing Demi Moore’s portrayal of a navy Seal with shaved hair in the film GI Jane. However Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia, a condition where she loses her hair, did not find it amusing.
Now, whether Rock intended that joke to be a sign of Pinkett Smith’s action figure strength or not, or if he knew about her condition or not … the crime he committed was in fact a bad joke (and let’s be honest, the Oscars are generally full of them!)
Rock, in 2022, should not have been making a comment about a woman’s appearance - end of story. Smith has every right to defend his wife, and had he not decided to take matters into his own hands – literally – perhaps that’s the point we would all be debating now.
Instead, Smith stormed the stage and slapped the comedian before yelling “Keep my wife’s name out of your f*cking mouth.”
Rather than be escorted from the arena for his violence, less than an hour later Smith was given Hollywood’s highest honour … an Oscar for his performance in King Richard where he played the father of tennis champions Serena and Venus Williams.
During his speech Smith apologised for the outburst and tearfully said “I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people …”
He added: “Love will make you do crazy things”.
Meanwhile, half the audience, which included the biggest names in Hollywood, gave him a standing ovation.
Don’t we tell our children that violence is never the answer?
How can we condone the message that love makes you violent?
Wouldn’t Smith’s point have been far more powerfully made had he addressed the joke when he won the Oscar? Or released a statement a day later?
As best selling author Glennon Doyle wrote on Twitter following the telecast, “violence is never ‘proof of love’.
That’s a deadly idea that has fuelled and excused domestic (and all) violence for far too long. Think hard about that take please.”
Not to mention that a film – centred around the remarkable careers of two of the world’s greatest female athletes — has also now become a story about a man and an act of violence.
Many reviews online today have questioned whether it was a stunt.
These questions will play out over time, but for now - after this moment was beamed around the world - it doesn’t matter if the incident was genuine or staged.
It's no wonder people roll their eyes when those in Hollywood preach about their moral authority.
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