Editor’s Note: Holly Thomas is a writer and editor based in London. She is morning editor at Katie Couric Media. She tweets @HolstaT. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion on CNN.
No one expected drama from the 2022 Oscars. For an occasion that supposedly celebrates innovation and imagination in the film industry, the Academy Awards has cultivated an almost impressively tedious reputation in recent years, constituting several hours of repetitive back-patting and mainly White people winning things, interjected with the occasional tearful speech.
As the world now knows, that bland predictability was punctured Sunday night, when Will Smith stormed on stage and slapped Chris Rock as he was presenting the award for best documentary feature.
Rock had made a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith, Smith’s wife, comparing her to Ridley Scott’s “G.I. Jane,” in which Demi Moore shaves her head. Pinkett-Smith, who has spoken publicly about having alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss, is currently sporting a close-shaven look.
After hitting Rock, Smith returned to his seat, appearing to call back: “Keep my wife’s name out of your f***ing mouth.”
At the time, Smith didn’t apologize to Rock, who according to police, declined to file a report over the incident. Smith did say he was sorry at last in an Instagram post Monday evening, saying in part: “Violence in all forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally. I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong.”
During the ceremony, when he returned to the stage shortly afterward to accept his best actor award for his role as Richard Williams in “King Richard,” Smith referred to what happened indirectly and distanced himself from responsibility. “Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams,” he said haltingly through tears. “But love will make you do crazy things.”
We can at least be thankful that Smith didn’t go full “Ali,” in homage to his other past role as the champion boxer. But more to the point, Smith’s reaction, like his words during his acceptance speech, were more about himself than his wife – and that’s what rankles most. Men shouldn’t use women’s interests as a rationalization for hitting people — and sending the message that this is what women want of men is not only unhelpful, but potentially dangerous.
As a superstar with every resource and PR tool under the sun at his disposal, Will Smith could have chosen from countless ways to respond to Rock’s joke. He could have communicated his feelings verbally to his millions of followers on social media, donated to a charity for alopecia or roped his celebrity pals into a soothing rendition of “Imagine.”
Whatever he decided to do, he should have waited to see whether it was what his wife, the subject of the joke, actually wanted, before centering himself and escalating a conflict she may not have been happy to amplify.
Worse, Smith’s “vessel for love” comments when accepting his award echo one of the primary justifications employed by perpetrators of domestic abuse – something Smith himself has firsthand knowledge of as a survivor – that “love” “causes” them to hit.
Assault is never a justifiable comeback to a joke, however tasteless, but violence on someone else’s behalf is even murkier territory. If Pinkett-Smith had leaped on stage and slapped Chris Rock herself it would still have been wrong, but she would at least have chosen the action taken on her behalf, and borne the consequences of that. Instead, she’s forced to associate with behavior that she may not condone – and probably doesn’t, if her past responses are anything to go by.
When Rock joked about Pinkett Smith and her husband boycotting the 2016 Oscars, she took it in her stride. “Hey look it comes with the territory,” she said at the time, adding: “We got a lot of stuff we gotta handle, a lot of stuff going on in our world right now. We gotta keep it moving.” If Smith had taken her lead, Rock’s comment would already be forgotten. Instead, it’s cemented as one of the most embarrassing moments in Oscar history.
Will Smith’s self-aggrandizing excuse of “defending” his family and behaving like a “father” – which his apology post acknowledged was “out of line” and “wrong” – might have made sense if his outburst had been in response to a physical threat to his brood, or if being a dad had anything to do with what happened. But interrupting someone else’s big win to slap someone for a spicy remark about your wife is a pretty unsustainable model for fatherly behavior — not to mention a rubbish example for his millions of fans.
For the guy who was famously above cursing in his music – apparently because his grandmother persuaded him that “truly intelligent people” don’t need to – it’s a pretty significant lapse in judgment.
For millennia, men have chosen the best course of action on women’s behalf, and for millennia, they’ve almost always been wrong.
Jada Pinkett-Smith is an intelligent adult woman who has proven time and again that she speaks for herself. She’s an entertainment veteran in her own right, and even has a podcast on which she regularly shares her boldest and most raw opinions on challenging subjects — including her marriage, and alopecia itself. There was no need for her husband to intercede on her behalf on an issue she’s more than capable of handling.
After the ceremony was over, Smith added a comment under an Instagram picture of himself and his wife dolled up for the night, quipping: “You can’t invite people from Philly or Baltimore nowhere!!”
Perhaps he was referring to his popularly fictionalized roots, but Smith is not a young boy anymore. He’s a man in his 50s, with decades of experience in the industry. He could easily have taken a leaf out of young Will’s book, and chosen the path of nonviolence, retreating to some “mansion in Bel Air.”
Instead, he chose to hit a man who wasn’t threatening any danger, on his wife’s behalf. In doing so, he embarrassed his wife and shamed himself.
