The Will Smith slap has no place at the Oscars — but absolutely belongs at the Logies

Will Smith’s slap at the Oscars was a hideous display of toxic masculinity – but has it set the stage for more celebrities to behave similarly?

The Will Smith slap was a disgusting act of toxic masculinity that had no place at an esteemed event like the Academy Awards but is the exact kind of bogan display we expect to see at the Logies.

Nay! Not expect. Demand!

Australian television’s night of nights returns in June after a two-year pandemic-imposed hiatus and it’s a pimple that’s ready to burst. As Australia’s screen stars gather on the Gold Coast for the celebrations, we the viewers can only hope it adopts the recklessness of what became the most controversial moment in Oscars history.

Will Smith marching up on stage at this week’s ceremony and slapping Chris Rock for making a throwaway joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, had big Logies energy.

“Jada I love you, G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it,” Rock said of Pinkett Smith’s shaved head while referencing a pretend remake of the 90s flick that saw a bald Demi Moore take on the lead role.

Some people have defended Smith’s aggressive reaction, saying Jada has spoken publicly about suffering from alopecia

“Love will make you do crazy things,” Smith said in his speech while accepting the Best Actor gong for his role in King Richard, just moments after dishing out the walloping.

The world is divided.

The Will Smith smackeroo has become an unintentional remake of the 2008 Christos Tsiolkas novel, The Slap, about the fallout that happens when a man reprimands a mate’s misbehaving kid with a slap at a barbecue.

Of course, Hollywood had to put its own glam spin on the original source material. A suburban barbecue? Boring. Change the setting to the Academy Awards. And instead of a naughty kid, make it Chris Rock.

Can’t wait for the HBO telemovie about this moment.

Anyway, now the line has been crossed, it sets the stage for other slappers. That’s what happens with things like this. It’s never just an isolated incident. Prepare to see more copycat slappers.

Like at the Logies. The Australian Emmys (*snort*) has always been tasteless, so people getting drunk and slapping each other would really not be out of place. In fact, it’s surprising it hasn’t happened before.

After Tom Gleeson hijacked the Gold Logie votes with a smear campaign against his fellow nominees and nabbed the award in 2019, Amanda Keller absolutely should’ve stormed the stage and slapped him, Will Smith-Style.

It would’ve been the slap heard ‘round the Gold Coast. And unlike the Oscars incident, where police got involved and told Chris Rock he could press charges, the cops at Surfer’s Paradise wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.

Drunk people slapping each on the Gold Coast? That’s all in a day. If anyone even tried to report a Logies slap, the cops would just shrug and say, “ … And?”

In fact, because the award show’s two-year hiatus has allowed Tom Gleeson to hold onto the Gold Logie title for an extended run, Amanda Keller would still be well within her rights to slap him at the June ceremony. A retroactive slap.

Enough with the mock-choking. Slap him!

Stars slapping people is very “old Hollywood” diva behaviour. Faye Dunaway is famous for allegedly dolling out slaps to people she can’t stand.

“My first day on the set, she slapped me,” Rutanya Alda, who appeared with the screen icon in the 1981 movie Mommie Dearest, told the New York Post.

Broadway wig designer Paul Huntley, who worked with Dunaway on a 1996 tour, also witnessed her fondness for whacking.

“Faye didn’t like how the hairpins were being presented and she slapped my assistant’s hand,” he said. “(The assistant) was horrified and did not know what to do.”

In 2019, Dunaway was fired from the Broadway-bound play Tea at Five for allegedly slapping a crew member.

Slapping in Hollywood is nothing new and it’s great to see Faye passing the torch onto Will Smith. It’s a weird mentor-protégé pairing, but we’ll accept it.

Pretty soon, slapping people will just become a part of our everyday lives. All trends trickle down from Hollywood and into society. Ugg boots. Botox. Now, slapping.

There’s a guy at my coffee shop who hums. He needs to be slapped. I also wanna slap the Coles attendant who always stands in everyone’s way at the self-serve check-outs.

Then there’s the vending machine delivery guy who placed a random Crunchie at the front of all the Twisties, which meant, to get to the Twisties, I had to buy the Crunchie first.

The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I should lurk in the shadows of my office kitchenette and wait until that ridiculous delivery driver arrives with the next stock refill. Then, out of nowhere, I’ll lurch out from behind the fridge and issue two slaps – one with each hand.

“This one’s for Dunaway! And this one’s for Smith!”

Love will make you do crazy things? Yeah. And so will Twisties.

Twitter, Facebook: @hellojamesweir