Will Smith slaps Chris Rock at Oscar Ceremony
I know it’s NotTheBee but this is the footage:
Important: Will Smith just slapped the dog snot out of Chris Rock at the Oscars pic.twitter.com/MCQpQ3KsTi
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) March 28, 2022
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Cancel Culture adjacent, I guess.
Maybe file under “microaggression”?Report
Here’s a slo-mo edit, with some other video feeds (I think a Japanese one in addition to the Australian one above) which have different angles (maybe the foreign broadcasts use their own camera crews? or maybe just directors and pick different angles than the ‘main’ US feed?)
https://twitter.com/SHABOOTY/status/1508273855000887299?s=19Report
They figured out how to get everybody to tune in next year.Report
Even Devin Nunes knows not to slap people (and cows) in California.Report
Okay, we’ve gotten to the apologies.
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Well, Jaden tweeted out “And That’s How We Do It”.
I feel like this was, on the 10 scale, a 3 (maybe a 4, given that it’s Sunday night), but, in the grand scheme of things, an example of something that is technically illegal and vaguely shameful but, for Hollywood, it’s a “for me, it was Tuesday” kinda thing.
There’s a lot of discussion about how it was clearly assault.
There’s a lot of discussion about how it might be technically assault.
There’s a lot of discussion about how it was a *SLAP* and not a *PUNCH*.
There’s a lot of discussion about how Will Smith needs to be arrested.
There’s a lot of discussion about how Will Smith only needs to apologize.
There’s a lot of discussion about abuse and violence.
There’s some discussion about abuse and violence and race.
There’s some minor discussion about how it was fake.
There’s some minor discussion about how it’s far too interesting to have been planned prior to the event.
I suppose that there’s a discussion we ought to have about violence being used to resolve interpersonal conflict… but given that this whole thing strikes me as a 3, maybe a 4, I’m not sure that there’s a way to have a 3, maybe a 4, discussion about it.
It’s either going to turn into “SO YOU’RE SAYING THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN OKAY FOR WILL SMITH TO KILL HIM!” versus “SO YOU’RE SAYING THAT THE COPS SHOULD KNEEL ON WILL SMITH’S NECK FOR EIGHT MINUTES AND FORTY-SIX SECONDS!”
But I look at Jaden’s tweet and think “I feel like I should disapprove of that.”
However I feel about the slap itself (a 3, maybe a 4), I look at Jaden’s response and think that maybe it’s bigger than just an altercation between two celebrities at a ceremony intended to celebrate celebrities.Report
This is a good example of why this is gonna be an Engine of Discourse until the next shiny bauble bounces across our TLs.
Like, I was all with you and then we get to the Jaden Tweet and I’m like, :”Jaden’s dad just smacked a dude who was talking shit about his mom. Of course he’s gonna support it. What son wouldn’t?”
This is a second or third order disagreement over whether a Tweet is bad, and because it’s so vivid, and is adjacent to both Issues and common experiences and emotional impulses, we’ve all got some opinions, man.Report
We have fully moved into “The slap, but really about my own personal pet issues” territory at this point.
Perhaps the slap could have been avoided if marijuana were legal?
Oh, this happened in California where it’s already legal?
Perhaps the slap could have been avoided if Will Smith had been high on weed instead of high on cocaine?Report
The New York Post does it again:
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I start from the assumption that this was staged. I will update my judgment as more information comes out.Report
I can see the slap being staged, but the cursing caused about 15 seconds of dead air, which is rotten TV, so no. If Smith had yelled at Rock without the F-bombs, I’d be open to thinking the whole thing was a bit.Report
And Chris seemed legitimately confused afterward. I don’t think he saw it coming, and he was just trying to figure out how to keep the show going.Report
I think that the most compelling argument against is that the slap was too interesting and there was too much official dead air following.
But the closest thing that I have to an expert seems to agree with the “work” theory:
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Funniest response:
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Two chicks at the sam-… wait. I’m sure that isn’t appropriate.Report
I guess we know Will Smith’s thoughts on the Heckler’s Veto article.Report
It’s easy to take a controversial stance when you know the worst that can happen is being sent to live with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.Report
If you were idly wondering “Did Jazzy Jeff tweet anything?”, the answer is “Yes.”
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But if Janet Hubert (the Aunt Viv who Will ‘allegedly’ fired) comes down on the side of Will, I guess it’s dispositive.
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Alfonso Ribeiro has not yet tweeted about the incident.
Sadly, James Avery passed in 2013.Report
I believe Chris Rock implicitly agrees with this take, due to his failure to defend himself in the moment and reported decision not to press charges.Report
Truffault is credited with saying that you cannot make an anti-war film. (That’s not what he said, but that doesn’t matter.)
Well, the Academy tweeted out this:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql54DPd44TQ
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https://twitter.com/_ja_s_on_/status/704120354055319552?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwReport
https://twitter.com/oldTrumpTweetz/status/1508492495457603595?t=UDQ16WNPR43GVbBkEDLJ4w&s=19
https://twitter.com/oldTrumpTweetz/status/1508494779457363978?t=_AwkrFCZkpWi1Wo50MNjiQ&s=19Report
This whole mess reminds me of something a lawyer friend told me long ago. If a defendant only took one punch, and the person punched did something to provoke it, e.g., “had it coming”, juries will nullify any assault verdict.
This is not what the law says, but what people do.
Did Chris Rock “have it coming?” I dunno. I think I might have laughed at it if it were me, or my wife. I can also see not laughing at it at all.Report
NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: SNL cold open ratings up 16%! “Not very funny”, viewing audience says. Ratings regress to mean afterwards.Report
https://slapchris.com/Report
43 km/h — so in effect we’ll never know what that means because it’s metric.Report
Freedom units are available with a clickReport
Some of the tone about this changes when you realized that Chris Rock has mocked Jada before, and that he did this joke again in rehersal, and was warned not to do it again by Will Smith. This wasn’t just Smith hauling off randomly, this was him responding to something he had flatly told Rock not to do.
And also that, like, that’s an actual real disease Jada has, not some random bad haircut. It’s just a disease that mostly affects Black people and hence a lot of white people sorta ignore it. If some white people need actual context for this, just pretend she has cancer and lost her hair to that. It’s incredibly tasteless to mock her about that, something she has talked about being sensitive about.
And anyone who think ‘Oh, she’s rich and still gorgeous, who cares if it hurt her feelings?’, uh…I wonder exactly how many women and girls who have lost their hair and were sensitive about it were watching. You can’t just mock a wealthy person for a disease or how they look, just because they’re wealthy, because _other people are like that also and they can hear you_.(1)
Chris Rock has been an ass for years. Which we all knew. But this honestly is a new low.
Oh, and the amazing thing is that this joke was apparently in the _rehersal_ also and apparently everyone who could have told Rock ‘no’ was fine with it. The Academy was okay with him making that joke? So…I didn’t have an respect for the Academy before, but now I have even less.
Like, I don’t know what to think about Smith doing what he did, honestly, we might be better off in the world if people who mocked other people’s appearance just immediately got slapped as a sort of general principle, but…I’m not really being serious there. But still…of all the reasons to hit someone, this is nowhere near the worse.
1) This is one of the few ‘both sides do it’ that is actually true. I see so many otherwise intelligent progressives mocking the appearance of their political enemies, and I also want to slap them.Report
From the founder of our feast:
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