…i don’t know how much of friends they are but i doubt Chris Rock would want to go after Will Smith in that way…
Considering the bid war for Rock’s next stand-up special between HBO / Netflix (et all) has likely EXPLODED at the moment, I’m betting Rock will be able to buy his way into repairing any hurt feelings he may have.
The alt-universe version of this event, where the Smiths walked out and later had a Teachable Moment about alopeca and “maybe jokes about the appearance of women should be left behind.” is probably the vastly nicer one.
Meanwhile, in our universe, we’re going to get an absolutely legendary episode of South Park, where Will Smith’s Wife is unsure of why everyone has suddenly forgotten her name.
It probably was, but by Rock himself (maybe with other writers). Either way, it was a very personal attack on someone with a medical condition. Given how often Black women get the short end of the stick in American society, I can understand Smith’s reaction, no matter if the joke was written or off-the-cuff…
that’s not what happened.
It’s not what actually happened, so it’s irrelevant. People tend to bring up what if scenarios to “get” other people who treat events that happen in reality as just that. There is no individual who makes all the right choices all the time. And to sit on one’s high horse and pretend like they’ll ALWAYS make those correct choices is bullshit of the highest order. It’s the worst aspects of modern philosophy - it takes all the nuance, context, and gray out of real life and assumes that one can come up with a right answer, when that is just not how reality works.
I see lots of people rushing to condemn Will Smith, and very few willing to also condemn Chris Rock. Especially as this is not the first time Rock has belittled Jada Pinkett Smith. Making insulting jokes about people because of their illnesses should be equally condemned as slapping someone in response. If someone did that to my partner, I would also want to slap them around the face.
No disagreement with you about policy, and upholding rules, etc.
That is sad, but too true.
Agreed, though usually that selective enforcement in any group tends to benefit rich White males above everyone else.
I consider the Academy yet another corrupt institution which props up the White supremist patriarchy, so personally I have no expectation of any kind of ‘ethics’ or ‘morality’ from them.
I just find some other people’s opinions on this incident to be very telling…
Speaking of such folks:
This is a BBS forum, not a court of law.
I don’t feel that this particular exchange is contributing anything of value to the conversation at hand, so I am going to disengage from it.
They could admit that they failed to take appropriate action and should have removed him. Essentially instead of saying they don’t condone violence, they should say that they did condone it, they shouldn’t have, and they promise to do better in the future.
They should also apologize to Chris Rock for their failure to act.
I may be mistaken on that. I can’t find what I read last night to back that up.
Because slow mode is on, I can’t edit it. So I will just delete, repost, and correct myself that I may have been misinformed. The rest of my points still stand.
If Chris Rock isn’t filing charges, then I think this should be a done deal and the world should move on. It will live on in a meme for years, though.
I believe I read that the joke was scripted, which means the Academy shares some responsibility for the event (ETA I can’t confirm that statement. I recall reading about it last night, but can’t confirm where, so that may be speculation and it may have been ad libbed. If it wasn’t scripted then the Academy doesn’t share responsibility for the joke.). Sure, light roasting has been a staple at rewards shows, but there are taking things too far. I honestly didn’t understand the joke at first, or why anyone would get upset by it. And indeed Will initially laughed, while Jada frowned. The camera then cut away, but I suspect Will’s reaction was based mainly on Jada’s reaction. In hindsight and learning about Jada’s medical condition, it was clearly a low blow on Rock’s/(and possibly the writers’) part.
So… yeah. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Neither were free of fault. If the matter is more or less “resolved” between the two parties, I don’t know if we need to punish anyone further.
ETA: For people calling for consistency of enforcing the rules - uh - usually I am against blind “Zero Tolerance” policies. If a situation can be looked at and reasoned that punishment isn’t warranted, then it shouldn’t be applied. “But it’s the rules/law.”, IMO, isn’t the best reasoning for insisting on enforcement.
True, but when people make the wrong choices, such as the choice to intemperately assault someone on stage, they need to be held accountable, no matter who that person they hit is.
Talking about other scenarios where it seems more likely that Smith wouldn’t have been able to just go back to his seat like nothing happened, such as if he had hit pretty much anyone other than Chris Rock helps make the the Academy’s unusually lax treatment of Smith’s violent assault in this case more obvious.
I agree with this. His participation in this event, regardless of his status as a nominee, should have been forfeited. It was a mistake for whoever was running this event to not insist he leave.
When you go to any sporting or entertainment event, your ticket or venue has rules about acceptable behavior which you implicitly accept by attending the event. If it doesn’t already, my guess is award show invitations will now come with such rules from now on.
They could have, but they didn’t and they likely wont.
Maybe I didn’t make it clear when I stated that I personally have no expectation of corrupt people and establishments to do the right thing, because it’s an unrealistic one.
I don’t have much to add to this discussion which hasn’t already been said, except for one thing that was mentioned in this opinion piece by Eric Deggans: quite a few of Hollywood’s most powerful and influential people in the audience chose to give a standing ovation to Smith just a few minutes after the incident. So it wasn’t just the producers of the show that condoned this.
Last night I was Oscar scrolling reading foolishness and this one made me laugh WAY harder than I expected. It is (literally) inside baseball. Link provided below for context with audio/video.
