Will Smith wins the Oscar and loses his career at the same gala
'CODA' won the Oscars jackpot but everything was overshadowed by one of the most shocking and embarrassing television moments in television history, Will Smith took the stage to punch Chris Rock who had just made a harmless joke about his wife. Then he won his Oscar for best actor and gave a speech in which he tried to justify himself, trying to make an example of the man his movie was about, Richard Williams, saying that he should protect the family from him.
It was an unjustifiable act of violence and less at a time when there is a war involved. If Janet Jackson lived a nightmare for showing a nipple at the Superbowl, this could mean the end of the career of one of the best-known actors in Hollywood.
If Smith had not lost his mind live, we could be talking about the most diverse Oscars in history, awards in which the main award went to a film about the deaf but in which there were also awards for Afro-Latin members of the LGTBIQ+, such as Ariana DeBose, songs in Spanish, three female presenters, two of them black, one woman, Jane Campion, winning the award for best director, for the third time in history, a deaf and dumb actor, Troy Kotsur, won the award for supporting actor or the best animated film with Latin protagonists, 'Encanto'.
But everything was overshadowed by the most surreal moment in years, an outburst of violence that Smith tried to justify with a tearful speech in which he tried to mourn, remembering that Denzel Washington had told him that "in the most important moment of your life is when the devil knocks at the door. There was no apology to the victim, a Chris Rock who made a humorless joke that Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, should star in the second part of 'Lieutenant O'Neill' because she had shaved hair. Not happy with the aggression, Smith has shouted "get my wife's name out of your fucking mouth", leaving the entire audience in a state of shock and taking the focus off where it should be, the first being the great Questlove who was in charge of receive the Rock award for best documentary.
50th anniversary of 'The Godfather'
But it is that the painful performance of Smith has also planned for one of what should have been one of the great moments of the gala when Francis Ford Coppola has gone out to receive a tribute for the 50th anniversary of 'The Godfather', along with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. Nothing was the same at the ceremony, one of the presenters, Amy Schumer, who is the only one who has managed to get some humor, has joked about it when after leaving she said "have I missed something? I see that the atmosphere is very different". And what if it was, Smith had managed to steal the limelight from the cinema on her big night and give it to violence, at a gala in which references to the invasion of Ukraine have also shone due to her absence.
The awards at the end have been the least of it, with a more diverse Academy but just as conservative as always in its tastes and winners, 'CODA' has unfairly won 'The Power of the Dog', Kenneth Branagh has won the award for best screenplay otignal to the clearly superior 'Licorice Pizza', which has gone empty, and Jessica Chastain has won over Olivia Colman and Penélope Cruz, with one of those Oscars that the Academy gives for the race, rather than for the role. At least Jane Campion has taken home a well-deserved award, the only one for 'The Power of the Dog'.
1 of 4 for the Spanish
Among the four Spanish candidates, only Alberto Mielgo has been lucky, whose 'The wiper' has won the Oscar for best animated short. As its category has been one of those that the Academy has decided to cut and deliver before, we have found out while the stars paraded down the red carpet and we have seen it later at a gala in which Billie Eilish has shone, who has taken the Oscar for best song for 'No Time To Die', but it has left an obvious bad taste in the mouth.
The fact is that, at the beginning, Amy Schumer has been successful and has distributed some bad blood among the nominees, her joke about Leonardo DiCaprio fighting to leave a better planet for his girlfriends has been especially good, or the fact that there has been beginning the ceremony saying that the Academy had opted for three women instead of one man because it was still much cheaper for them, it has also been successful.
But it's all over when Smith has taken the stage and ended his live career, was he really unable to take a joke? Was that really her way of defending the family from him? What does love have to do with violence? Whatever was going through his head at that moment, or whatever he had taken before, his act is inexplicable and it will cost him more than an Oscar or a tearful speech to explain. For now, he has stolen her night from the movies and has given her over to violence.
