Rather than smack Chris Rock, Will Smith was better off Smacking the Academy
How the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are the offenders by enabling Chris Rock and being worthy of Will Smith's anger.
By now, one would have to be in a coma or sleeping under a rock to be unaware of Will Smith hitting Chris Rock in the face after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, at the 2022 Academy Awards. At first, an unmeasurably large share of audience members, social media commenters, and online writers and critics initially perceived the Smith’s attack on Rock as staged, especially as the 94-year-old awards show was presumably trying to increase ratings (which it did by nearly 60%) from its absolute worst in 2021. Suddenly, once an unhinged Smith screamed “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth” to Rock causing discomfort and brief silence within the theater, by a consensus, audiences wherever they could be found believed the incident to be real.
Rock awkwardly transitioned to finish his remaining sentences before Smith not only was calmed down by nearby stars such as Bradley Cooper and Denzel Washington but was awarded the Oscar for Best Actor in his role as Richard Willis in the film King Richard. Smith eventually apologized to Rock for hitting him and even had a thriller party for his cinematic career victory, but Rock reportedly was nowhere to be found after the awards ceremony’s conclusion.
As public figures and social media commenters have taken time to process the incident, there are questions and speculation about Smith’s motives. Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier and Nischelle Turner, after dually criticizing Rock and Smith (Smith especially), for their on-stage behavior, both have revealed potential details and a possible feudal history between Rock and Smith that led to the actor’s attack on the comedian.
In 2016, Pinkett-Smith had vowed to boycott that year’s Academy Awards ceremony after the Academy had lopsidedly racially disparate outcomes for white performers in which no person of color was nominated for an award. Coincidentally, Rock was the ceremony’s host and, according to media outlets including Entertainment Tonight, was mocking Pinkett-Smith (and thus mocked Smith and even other people of color) for the move and, as a result, Smith held a grudge against Rock in the lead-up to the ceremony of 2022 and used his long-standing, boiling anger toward Rock in the attack.
Presently (because no one has a life or a brain of his or her own), oppositional and propositional views of the punch’s justification are being expressed, except most are failing to realize that Rock’s actions toward Pinkett-Smith were (with no potential shock) presumably approved by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Considering it, as mentioned above, was desperate to resurge its relevance and ratings from its all-time lowest taking place last year, the Academy was asking for trouble.
The debate or discussion of how the Academy can improve its ratings is one that can be formed at another time, but Smith’s attack on Rock and post-attack reaction showed that he not only felt that attacks should be based on his conflicts of interest but that he is a fraud. As a man who supposedly regretted not doing a better job of “protecting women” long ago, Smith seems to love an industry, Hollywood partnered with its “Academy,” that disparately favors men over women with respect to age related to roles, lead role opportunities, financial compensation, and leadership opportunities. After all, his collection of female co-stars in lead roles included women who were more than 10 years younger than him, most notably Rosario Dawson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Worst of all, we do not exactly hear him advocating that lead roles go to his past female co-stars who were within five years his junior. Such actresses include Eva Mendes and Bridget Moynahan.
Lastly, as someone who once co-hosted the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway and claimed that he felt “a deep connection to Hindu spirituality and Indian astrology,” his attack on and even apology toward Rock revealed his greater fraudulence as (the last time I checked) the Nobel Peace Prize is about peace and the Hindu culture is known to promote non-violence.
Rather than trying to use his celebrity to possibly be disingenuous in his promotion of social justice causes, Smith was better off saying “I feel the need to pander” and “that Shiva ceremony in India rocked. It’s way better than ‘Ay! Kya bolti tu!’” Smith’s selfish and motive-related decision to “smack the shit” out of Rock after participating in philanthropic and symbolic events to promote himself as morally superior should motivate us to believe little in what he has to say. Considering he also knows what Hollywood and the Academy are about, especially with their desire to seek relevance, Smith is (until further notice and genuinely remorseful through his actions) no longer this respectable person whose social justice causes and philanthropy are worthy of being taken seriously.
If he really had to “fight” for his wife against award show villainy, Smith may as well have given a “smack” to the Academy. Remember, it overwhelmingly likely approved of and enabled Rock and his antics as an institution with a history of successful and failed attempts to boost ratings. But how could Smith punch the Academy and its people anywhere? After all, he had an award that was at stake.