Will Smith at the Oscars 2022: the heated debate that generated the actor's slap to Chris Rock at the Hollywood awards gala
Jada Pinkett Smith's expression of exasperation says it all: Chris Rock's joke about her alopecia - a condition that causes hair loss and about which she has spoken candidly in the past - was not funny at all .
Immediately afterwards, and after sketching a smile that we now see as probably uncomfortable, her husband, Will Smith, climbed on stage and slapped Rock. He then returned to his seat and exclaimed at the top of his voice, "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth."
The scene - which took less than a minute to develop - quickly became one of the most tense and probably most memorable moments of the 94th Academy Awards ceremony.
And while not making direct reference, Smith attempted to explain his actions later when he tearfully accepted the best actor award for his role in King Richard, where he plays the father of tennis players Venus and Serena Williams.
"I know to do what we do you have to be able to take abuse, and people saying crazy things about you and people disrespecting you, and you have to smile and pretend it's okay. But love makes you do crazy things," she said through tears.
By then, the reactions in the media and on the networks had already skyrocketed.
"Only the fifth black man in nearly 100 years to win an Oscar for a male lead role, and the first in 16 years, resorts to violence rather than using the power of words to annihilate Chris Rock. He then claims that God and love made him do it," Booker Prize-winning writer Bernardine Evaristo tweeted.
"Will Smith owes Chris Rock a huge apology. There's no excuse for what he did. He's lucky Chris doesn't press charges," said American film director Rob Reiner.
Actress Mia Farrow called the incident "the ugliest moment at the Oscars," later adding: "It was just a joke. Jokes are what Chris Rock does (...) This was a soft joke for him. And I love G.I. Jane."
Comedian and director Judd Apatow wrote in a Twitter post that he later deleted: "Looks like Will Smith's plan to keep comedians and the world from making jokes about him isn't going to work."
"The Williams family must be furious. Pure narcissism... It could have killed him. That's pure rage and out of control violence. They've heard a million jokes about them in the last three decades. They're not new to the world of Hollywood and comedy. He lost his mind."
But not all reactions were negative.
Actress Tiffany Haddish told People magazine: "When I saw a black man stand up for his wife. That meant a lot to me. As a woman, who's been unprotected, for someone to say, 'Keep my wife's name out of your mouth, leave her alone', that's what your husband is supposed to do, right? Protect you"…. And maybe the world doesn't like how it happened, but for me, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life because he made me believe that there are still men out there who love and care about their women."
History of family abuse
The comments mostly condemn Smith's violent gesture. But some go further and try to understand the reasons behind his behavior.
The British newspaper The Guardian, for example, relies on "Will", Smith's autobiography published in 2021 in which the actor details the brutal abuse that his father inflicted on his mother and which he witnessed, to establish a link between his experiences as a child and his current behavior.
"When I was 9 years old, I saw my father hit my mother on the side of the head with such force that she collapsed," Smith wrote.
"I saw her spit blood. That moment in that room, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am."
It wasn't just the violence that left him traumatized, Smith explained in your book, but his own lack of action in the face of it.
"In everything I've done since then, the awards and accolades, the spotlight and attention, the characters and the laughs, there has been a subtle series of apologies to my mother for my inaction that day. For failing her in the moment. For not standing up to my father, for being a coward," he wrote.
His image, he adds, is largely a construct: "a carefully crafted and honed character, designed to protect me. To hide me from the world. To hide the coward."
S*xist violence
Another text, published in the Spanish newspaper El País, describes Smith's reaction as "another flagrant case that perfectly sums up everything that men should not be."
His reaction, he says, "contains all the elements that allow us to identify a model of masculinity that today remains the main obstacle to building a world without gender inequality and in which violence is no longer legitimized."
"A violence that is linked to the idea of power, to the omnipotence in which we men have been socialized and to the assumption that there is no better way to manage conflicts than resorting to force," says the article signed by Octavio Salazar .
Joke of bad taste - Disagreeable joke
While the spotlight was on Smith's behavior, it was also noted that Rock's joke was in poor taste, a cheap shot.
"Violence is not okay. Assault is never the answer," US actress Sophia Bush tweeted.
"This is the second time Chris has made fun of Jada onstage at the Oscars and tonight it was about her alopecia. Taking a swing at someone's autoimmune disease is wrong. Doing it on purpose is cruel. They both need a break."
As Sophia Bush noted, Sunday's ceremony wasn't the first time Rock had made a joke about Pinkett-Smith at the Oscars.
She also did it in 2016, when Pinkett-Smith was one of the stars who decided to boycott the ceremony due to the ostentatious lack of diversity among the participants.
"Jada Pinkett Smitt boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's undies. I wasn't invited."
"Her husband Will wasn't nominated for Concussion. I get it. You get upset. It's not fair that Will was so good and wasn't nominated. You're right (...) It's also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for Wild Wild West!" said the comedian at the time, referring to the comedy that the actor did in the 90s and that was poorly received by critics.
With the incident, the question of how far the limits of humor go has been reopened. Many voices allege that celebrities are used to the pressure of being in the spotlight and that, therefore, it is allowed to make jokes about them.
Other voices believe that Rock crossed a line when commenting on Pinkett-Smith's health and that Smith had the right to defend her, although not in this violent way.
Comedian Kathy Griffin, who received death threats for an infamous joke about Donald Trump, suggested that Smith's actions could put other comedians at risk: "Let me tell you something, it's very bad practice to go onstage and physically assault a comedian. Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters."
In a statement posted on Twitter after the ceremony, the Academy said it "does not condone violence in any form" and emphasized that the night is to celebrate winners who "deserve this moment of recognition from their peers and fans of the game." cinema from all over the world.
At Vanity Fair's Oscar party after the ceremony, Smith was apparently unaffected by the incident.
He danced to his own songs as his wife cheered him on, telling The Hollywood Reporter, "It's been a beautiful night."
