Love will make you do crazy things
Leave it to the Internet to take an act of benign celebrity-on-celebrity violence and turn it into a spectacle that makes even me (someone who gleefully devours celebrity gossip) exhausted by all the *discourse*. When Will Smith walked on stage during last Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony to slap Chris Rock across the face, what should have been a moment of riotous reality TV fun has turned into a national debate regarding social politics and the endorsement of unnecessary violence.
The incident reaches beyond the world of petty celebrity drama for a number of reasons. Leading up to the slap, comedian Chris Rock went down a line lobbing mild roasts against the A-listers seated closest to the Oscars stage. It’s a common practice for hosts and presenters that only occasionally courts controversy. Most celebs, whether genuine or not, laugh at the jabs made against them. Rock hit a nerve this year, however, when making an ad-libbed (according to the Academy) joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, comparing her look to the main character from G.I. Jane who rocks a similar hairstyle.
It’s unclear if Rock knew that Pinkett Smith is afflicted with alopecia. In 2021, she uploaded an Instagram video sharing that her struggles with the disease are what lead to her shaved head. “Mama's gonna have to take it down to the scalp,” she wrote. “So nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something. Me and this alopecia are going to be friends.” Rock was therefore laughing at a woman’s hairstyle that was the result of her autoimmune disease, making his joke classifiably ableist.
The fact that Pinkett Smith is black also contributes to historically fraught conversations about black women’s hair. Women of color are often judged by how well they assimilate to white Western beauty standards, making the subject of “good hair” a touchstone topic about racism in America (and elsewhere). Ironically, Chris Rock produced and narrated a documentary film called Good Hair about the cultural importance of black women’s hairstyles and the insecurities many black women face. “It's not important what's on top of your head,” Rock once said about the theme of the film. “It's important what's inside of your head.” Mocking what’s on top of Jade Pinkett Smith’s head can then be seen as hypocritical for Rock’s supposed philosophy about black women and their appearance.
Will Smith, at first, laughed at Rock’s joke. Rock proclaimed, “That was a nice one!” after Pinkett Smith rolled her eyes, while Smith apparently became upset off-camera, then walked onto the stage where Rock laughed and uttered an amused “uh-oh.” Smith then slapped Rock across the face, and even the audience seemed unsure of what had just happened–many assuming the outburst was planned or a good-natured joke. Rock almost cheerfully stated, “Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me,” but it became clear that the hit was neither friendly nor staged when Smith yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!” twice with increased aggression. Due to the live delay on American television, most viewers didn’t see the verbal altercation following the slap when it happened, but full clips quickly circulated online afterward.
Later in the night, Smith received the Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Richard Williams in King Richard. In the tear-laden acceptance speech that earned him a standing ovation, he said:
“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family. In this time in my life, in this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world. Making this film, I got to protect [the two actresses who played Richard Williams’ daughters].
I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people. I know to do what we do, you gotta be able to take abuse. You gotta be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you gotta be able to have people disrespecting you. And you gotta smile and you gotta pretend like that’s okay…
Denzel [Washington] said to me a few minutes ago… ‘At your highest moment, be careful, that’s when the devil comes for you.’ It’s like, I want to be a vessel for love…
This is a beautiful moment and I’m not… crying for winning an award… It’s not about winning an award for me, it’s about being able to shine a light on all of the people [that worked on the film, King Richard] and [the entire Williams family the film is based on]. Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said. I look like the crazy father just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.”
The entire spectacle inspired an onslaught of memes, of course, but alongside them came a myriad of hot-takes.
Comedians were one of the first groups to raise alarm, using the on-air assault of Chris Rock to add to the persistent discourse around the so-called “War on Comedy” and debates about the dangers of “cancel culture.” In a since-deleted tweet, Judd Apatow claimed Smith “could have killed” Rock with his “pure out-of-control rage and violence.” The nature of the assault has been thoroughly exaggerated by many with similar mindsets, acting as if a simple smack across the face is akin to beating the shit out of someone. Other comedians have begun employing the “slippery slope” fallacy to shame Smith. “It sets a terrible precedent in so many different ways,” Joe Rogan said on a recent episode of his podcast. “It sets a terrible precedent for comedy clubs. Like, are people going to decide to go on stage and smack a comedian now?”
I guarantee you, the average viewer sitting on their couch watching the Oscars is not implicitly absorbing the idea that they can get up and slap any random comedian any time they want just because they saw one of the wealthiest and most powerful actors in the country slap another wealthy and powerful celebrity on TV.
Those concerned about the incident “setting a precedent” are removing much of the assault’s context and exaggerating its harm. But many of those defending Smith are doing a similar thing by highlighting the insensitivity of Rock’s joke to imply that Smith was justified to hit him. Roxanne Gay penned a piece for The New York Times in defense of “thin skin,” titled “Jada Pinkett Smith Shouldn’t Have to ‘Take a Joke.’ Neither Should You.” Gay’s article is nuanced and, to be clear, does not attempt to absolve Will Smith of any wrongdoing (Gay states matter-of-factly, “Violence is always wrong and solves very little. Mr. Smith could have made so many better choices that did not involve putting his hands on another person in front of the entire world.”), but plenty have taken the general stance that not everyone needs to “take a joke” to suggest that Chris Rock deserved to be mildly assaulted.
I’ll throw cis male comedians a bone and state that “cancel culture” does really exist (though often without the material consequences being “canceled” is generally implied to have) and one of its hallmarks is the extremely-online using any controversy to re-hash years-old unrelated grievances.
Even people defending Will Smith are getting their past dug up by some sections of Twitter in retaliation.
I agree that many of Chris Rock’s jokes over the years have been offensive and inappropriate. I also believe in the wisdom of ye olde proverb, “talk shit, get hit.” I won’t say specific comments mean someone “deserves” to be slapped, but there are things one shouldn’t feel comfortable saying in public without some awareness of a potential physical reaction (if you ask me, there are plenty of comedians who’ve gotten way too comfortable with the idea that “free speech” will protect them from getting punched in the face, and all of them are so despicable that I wouldn’t bother adding Chris Rock to the list). Let’s not pretend, though, that Will Smith’s specific assault on Rock had anything to do with all the reasons Twitter’s put forward to say Rock earned what happened to him last Sunday.
Even the specific jab about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair is questionable in its earning of mild physical violence. The joke was insensitive for sure, but not mean-spirited. Rock may not have known of Pinkett Smith’s struggle with alopecia. Yes, he still made a joke about a person’s appearance, which isn’t nice, and the fact that it focused on a black woman’s hair when Rock is aware of that subject’s sensitivity makes it especially lamentable, but I personally doubt that Rock would have felt comfortable making the comment if Pinkett Smith wasn’t still a conventionally attractive woman, shaved head or otherwise. Note that he never made a comment implying anyone’s shaved head looked bad, he merely compared Pinkett Smith to Demi Moore’s styling in G.I. Jane (and Demi Moore is also a beautiful woman). That doesn’t make Pinkett Smith’s annoyance or hurt any less valid, but it matters for Rock’s intentionality. The joke simply wasn’t mean-spirited enough to rise to my personal standards of shit-talking to merit hit-taking.
I do still see why others find the joke a slap-worthy offense, but treating the incident like it was as simple as “Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for insulting his wife” removes a lot of necessary context. This wasn’t a case of two men standing face-to-face where one man slaps another for a joke he didn’t appreciate. What happened last week was much weirder.
When Rock first made the joke, Smith laughed. Like me, he didn’t personally find the comment outrageously offensive or mean-spirited. It was only once Smith saw the negative reaction of his wife that he became defensive and enraged, causing him to walk on stage during a live television broadcast and slap a fellow performer in the middle of an ongoing show. Afterward, Smith was visibly distressed, yelling at Rock with a locked jaw, then later appearing on stage to accept an award, already stricken with bloodshot eyes that quickly yielded a steady stream of tears down his famous face.
The incident disrupted the entire night. To this day, I have no clue what film won Best Picture because it’s not the moment people were talking about online (plus I didn’t care enough about the nominees to check). As dumb as the Oscars are, Will Smith knows as much as anyone how important the awards are to many within the film industry. His outburst overshadowed an accomplishment Smith’s peers value deeply, some working their whole lives with the hope that one day they’ll receive the honor of a nomination.
If Smith had a reputation like that of Kanye West or another star so comfortable in chaos, the events of last Sunday wouldn’t be so alarming; but Smith and his nuclear family have always been image-conscious. Aside from Jaden’s messy Twitter history, the Smiths are the quintessential Hollywood family that comes across as professional even in their most vulnerable public moments–like the deep discussions platformed on Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk that consistently depict the family’s private struggles as those of a mostly-stable family finding their footing amidst adversity.
Confessions made on Red Table Talk, though, along with Smith’s recent memoir which details extremely vulnerable experiences from his life–such as moments from his childhood with an abusive father, his suicidal ideation at age 13, or the fact he almost named his son Luigi–began a slow process of deterioration for Smith’s coolheaded public image, increasingly portraying him as a man overwhelmed by emotion. He stated in his book that he developed a “psychosomatic reaction” to orgasms which caused him to gag and sometimes vomit after sleeping with an amount of women he found “constitutionally disagreeable” to cope with a previous girlfriend’s infidelity. Mid-2020, Smith and Pinkett Smith sat down for an episode of Red Table Talk to discuss an “entanglement” Pinkett Smith had with rapper August Alsina while she and Smith were briefly separated. When the two addressed the “affair” Pinkett Smith had with Alsina (put in quotes since everyone involved has claimed Smith knew about the relationship and gave it his blessing as he and his wife were separated at the time), her calm description of the past in contrast to Smith’s more sensitive demeanor painted the partnership as unbalanced. Neither one said anything on camera that was particularly exposing for their private dynamic, but Smith looked about ready to cry throughout the conversation.
Who knows if he was, but the image alone of him looking near-tears listening to his wife explain her “entanglement” with another man got Smith labeled online as a “cuck,” “pussy,” and “simp” for his wife.
All that backstory makes the Sunday night slap feel like an extra juicy extension of the Will-and-Jada narrative, with some taking to portray Pinkett Smith as the true villain of the evening. We don’t have enough insight into their private dynamic or Pinkett Smith’s thoughts on the incident to reasonably make such a case (there’s a video online of her laughing at the slap, but until Smith started yelling profanity, most of the audience was laughing as well; who’s to say she understood the severity of the hit or that her husband wasn’t doing it as an impromptu gag). The slow reveal of Smith’s internal turmoil over the last few years, however, does portray his assault on Chris Rock as the result of something deeper and more complex than a sudden outburst of temporary rage.
No matter what you think about the justifiability of Will Smith’s slap against Chris Rock, Smith should have been escorted out of the building. Not as punishment or even as protection for anyone present, but as acknowledgment of the fact that Smith was not in a sensible state of mind. The actor who’d spent the better part of his career being considered a composed and professional member of Hollywood’s elite disrupted his industry’s biggest night to retaliate against a joke he initially displayed no problem with. Whatever the reason he became as incensed as he did–be it masculine pride, overcompensation for years of the Internet mocking him, a desperate attempt to satisfy his wife, etc.–his behavior was uncharacteristic to the point of implying an emotional crisis. Instead of being escorted out of the building where he could be given the opportunity to calm down and privately reflect on his actions, he was given an award and brought on stage to cry in front of millions with a standing ovation from a theater full of rich people.
The free-flowing tears on that stage made Smith’s speech appear vulnerable and honest, but his actual words were riddled with deflection. We didn’t see a man reckoning with what he’d done or trying to explore why he’d done it from an internal lens. What was likely a build-up of emotions brought forward in revolt against deeper anxieties or a trauma response following a life of experiencing abuse and abandonment was articulated as a man’s urge to “protect” and “defend” his loved ones, which Smith claims is what God is “calling on [him]” to do. The general point of the speech is barely comprehensible, going from an advocation to protect one’s family, to speaking out against the “abuse” and “disrespect” of the industry, to being a “vessel for love,” a concept that makes you do “crazy things,” against the devil coming for you at your highest point.
Replace a few words and you could easily see Kanye West typing the same speech out in an Instagram caption explaining why it’s okay for him to stalk his ex-wife. I don’t say that to imply that Smith and West are experiencing the same mental health struggles, but both men have now made statements that can be read as self-aggrandizing and bewildering in their attempts to be poignant as a response to deserved backlash. Smith’s speech is filled with so many different points indicating so much complex emotional distress that the stage for his words should have taken place in a therapist’s office rather than in front of TV cameras.
Attempts to defend or condemn Will Smith for what happened last week all read to me as similarly unsympathetic. Smith shouldn’t have been glorified for his actions, but he shouldn’t have been arrested, fined millions of dollars, or banished from his industry either, as some have suggested.
There are many hot takes we can make about this situation regarding intersectional issues of race, toxic masculinity, ableism, the boundaries of comedy, the entitlement of celebrities, and beyond. At the center of this entire conversation, though, is a man who’s been open about his struggles with mental health for years and was briefly unable to compose himself in front of millions of people due to his overwhelming emotions.
Men’s mental health, especially black men’s mental health, has never been taken as seriously as it should be. Maybe that’s why the manic episodes of Kanye West are treated as public entertainment, while Will Smith’s out of character behavior can only be conceptualized as the righteous retaliation against the guy that said something rude about Beyonce once or the frightful start to the “War on Comedy” men like Joe Rogan are supposedly on the front lines for.
My best hot-take is, everyone involved better have a good fucking therapist.