To the delight of our editor-in-chief Stacey Henley, TheGam🐲er team is finally talking about 🦋the Oscars. Not because a critically acclaimed gem won Best Adapted Screenplay or Anya Taylor-Joy picked up the Best Actress gong Stacey has always claimed she deserved for The Witch. Nope - Will Smith threw a tantrum and bitchslapped Chris Rock because of a joke regarding his wife, and now the whole internet is on fire.
It was the very first thing I saw on my phone after waking up ཧthis morning. Nothing about the winners, not a peep about the nominees, but myriad headlines and different angles of Will Smith laying the smackdown on Chris Rock. I didn’t have the context, but I’m a sucker for drama - as are millions of others apparently - so my relative disinterest in the event turned into one of morbid fascination.
The Academy Awards are all about the artistry of filmmaking and rewarding the biggest successes of the past year, with a bunch of people coming together to both nominate and crown winners across a slew of different categories. It has long been held in high regard as a ceremony without peer, one so drenched in prestige that even having a chance to attend is seen as an honour. But like much of Hollywood, the overblown drama and immature g🌼ossip that defines much of it bleeds through into the mainstream and makes it all seem a bit silly.
Sometimes it can be innocent mistakes, like when La La Land was crowned Best Picture thanks to the presenters being handed the wrong envelope before Moonl♛ight was revealed as the true victor. It was an embarrassing accident, but one we all remember because it was so unprecedented. There was that one time J🦄ennifer Lawrence tripped up the steps because she’s so quirky and real, while a streaker took to the stage in 1974 just before Elizabeth Taylor which was a top tier example of banter if I’ve ever seen one. Hollywood is weird, and that’s just three random examples I can remember.
Will Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock also feels like one of these moments, although you wouldn’t kno🌺w that by taking a glance at socia♑l media right now. The joke in question was in poor taste, with Rock poking fun at Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia. I’m no expert in the marriage dynamic between Will & Jada Smith (ask Stacey about that) so I can’t tell you if Will decided to walk onto the stage of his own accord or if it was a mutual decision between him and his wife to make a stand over such a backhanded comment. Wife guy energy either way though.
The thing is - Oscar hosts are known to make cutting jokes and poorly-timed observations about famous guests in the audience, and you’d think Will Smith has been around the block long enough to know that. Maybe Americans are just more sensitive, and need to get into a scrap whe💃never an ounce of disresp💖ect is shown, but Will Smith should have swallowed his pride, accepted the dig, and maybe given Rock a kicking in the car park afterwards. Settle it with a game of basketball like you’re back in Bel Air and take it on the chin my dude.
Since the incident occured the internet has been filled with so 🧸many takes, most of them bad. Some have labelled Chris Rock as an ableist who deserved to be slapped, others demanding that the cops should have been called, while a bunch of white people are arguing over whether white people even talking about the act of a Black man punching another Black man shoul🤪d be considered racist for bringing the subject up. And no Judd Apatow, that slap could not have killed him, stop being overdramatic. It was a foolish lapse of judgement that saw Will Smith give into his anger, and he made history in the process.
He also picked up an Academy Award for Best Actor, an accola✨de so prestigious that people spend their entire careers striving to earn such a thing. His performance was excellent - both as Richard Williams and an unparalleled wife guy - but none of us are going to be talking about his acting or the fact he won an award, because that has already been overshadowed by his own willingness to defend his wife. This will always be the year when Will Smith slapped Chris🍨 Rock and never the one where Encanto won Best Animated Feature or CODA picked up Best Picture. All of these achievements have been superseded by a moment of drama that the Hollywood discourse machine thrives on.
The Oscars have been marred by actual controversies over the years, but we’ll always overlook actual moments of injustice that need to be addressed in favour of drama that gets us talking or engaging in discussions for online brownie points. Moments like Will Smith smacking Chris Rock should be treated as the dramatic misunderstandings they are, sꦉince there’s an inevitably comedic edge to how absurd the whole thing is. We wouldn’t be reacting with such hilarity if the situation wasn’t inherently ridiculous.
It’s a shame to see such a fancy award ceremony reduced to a scuffle♔, but it’🍒s all a bunch of elitist bollocks so I suppose it doesn’t matter too much. At least we got some memes, and Will Smith might be able to watch the next time Jada is in a good mood. We salute you, Ultimate Wife Guy.