The Slap Heard By Everyone

There are a lot of us out there that have a sense of pride when we say things like "I don't even know who that is" or "I had no idea the Oscars were even happening." For others, statements like that may elicit an eyerolling cringey response of superiority and judgement towards people who feel like this, but even those of us who pretend like we don't give an iota of thought or concern to mainstream pop culture, we have a difficult time controlling that knee-jerk reaction when these celebrity controversies pop up. One thing about being a person who is unconcerned with the personal lives and behavior of celebrities is that we can usually cast a fairly objective eye on a situation whereas people who have certain stronger feelings about any parties, policies, people or places involved will naturally bring in a certain bias & inflame the conversation beyond the actual circumstances.

When it comes to Will Smith, you'd have had to live under a rock without any access to television or the movies if you've never heard of this guy. The same can go for Chris Rock. Certainly, both of these gentlemen have had their fair share of minor controversies throughout their careers, but in the case of the lifestyles of the rich and famous, this is all part of the package when your life, the people you love and the choices you make are put on full public display 100% of the time. These are the A listers. What they do has an impact and fall out in our national media, often more impactful on the public even than SERIOUS news like war crimes & school shootings, which irritates people who don't follow pop culture as it is viewed as a "mass weapon of distraction."

Maybe it's just easier sometimes to be famous for being a drama mama or a notorious asshole. Seriously, some people just make it part of their entire persona to say really offensive things to all kinds of peole all the time so that when they actually mean it in an insulting way, nobody bats an eye. Some people have bank-rolled their drama; getting arrested, violent confrontations, drugs, prostitutes; it's all just part of their iconography. They are fully aware that is what sells and it doesn't hurt, but rather helps their reputation even if they may not get invited to the fanciest parties all the time. People may get tired of reading about their issues, but there's still a fine line to walk because we never know when they'll actually cross completely over to the dark side and cancel culture steps in and says, "that's it, we're done with your shit." It happens, but it's not likely with either Smith or Rock in this case, so what do we want from them now that they BOTH fucked up and why does anyone care?

If you're more like the first person I described in the opening paragraph, although I highly doubt you haven't heard if you're by some miracle reading this blog, but let's break down what happened at the Oscars in 2022. Chris Rock is presenting awards and, as a comic does, he starts rattling off making "funny" statements as one does and Jada & Will appear entertained by their friend. Suddenly, he takes a turn in his comedy and starts poking fun directly at Jada's bald head and alluding to her struggle with her health issue of Alopecia. This was the catalyst for what followed and Chris Rock was absolutely NOT being cool to start making fun of something that nearly 7 million people in the US alone struggle with every day. It is embarrassing and there aren't that many effective treatments outside of wearing a wig and although many celebrities choose to wear wigs, Pinkett-Smith hasn't been leaning into that as a solution for her hair loss. Only in recent decades, has it become socially ad culturally unacceptable to make fun of people with mental health conditions, developmental disabilities, cancer, and other health conditions and at this point it should be generally accepted by ANY comic worth his microphone that everyone should just stop making fun of people who have health or any physical issues beyond or outside of their own control. It's not cool. If Will hadn't done what he did we'd probably have heard just a few statements from those with the same condition telling Rock he hurt their feelings too and somebody might have called them whiney. It wasn't the first time he's made remarks around Alopecia to Jada either.

After Rock makes his off-color remark saying he's looking forward to seeing GI Jane II well... we clearly see a shot of Smith having a laugh out loud moment only to be met with an ICE COLD look from his wife Jada. She was not having it and was clearly annoyed her husband found this statement even mildly amusing. Anyone who has a significant other is extremely familiar with THAT look. It's the one that says "what the fuck are you laughing at?! He's talking about me you jackass! You better do something about it." Non-verbal communication happens to be one of those skills that us ladies often excel at and Smith knew EXACTLY what she said with those piercing hazel eyes, but that's where everything goes wrong as Smith let his primitive & reactive self take over. He acts like it was his own flex between Rock & himself, but had he not seen & felt that look from his wife, he probably would have still been laughing and everything would have gone smoothly...until Jada & Will got home.

Since these are big A List celebrities and we know more than we deserve to about their lives, it's not hard to do a little digging and find out the Smiths have had public marital issues in their recent past including an infidelity by Jada which resulted in a public statement from the couple that Jada just really prefers to lean into a polyamorous dynamic, which is fine. Whatever works. Every relationship has their own structure and rules that make it work and media bloggers/experts are furiously digging up all these details to make sense of what transpired the other night; some venturing to say Smith was acting out in an effort to save what's left of this marriage, but this is also where we start making this personal, creating opinions and analysis of a relationship that really is nobody else's business whatsoever. It's entirely irrelevant to the actual events that took place the other night. This is where we need to separate the facts from our personal iterpretations of the situation.

The fact is, this isn't personal, this is cultural. What happens at the Oscars, major awards ceremonies, and how our chosen celebrities conduct themselves, their decorum is a direct reflection on us as a whole. Due to this, the conversation immediately shifts away from the fact that Smith took a very long walk, nearly 30 seconds, in which he had plenty of time to change his mind, alter his course, return to his seat or tap Rock on the shoulder to simply say to his face, "keep my wife's name out of your mouth" without the face slap. So we know this wasn't merely an impulsive reflex. This was a contemplated reaction. Now, this is the moment where I see all kinds of people, men, women, gay, straight, old, young, get into a point of disagreement on whether Smith was in the right to do this. A lot of statements, start with "if someone was disrespecting my wife, I'd have done the same thing!" Maybe you would. That's you. You're not an A List Celebrity who will have literally the entire world talking about you the next day and making memes. You might have a laugh or two about the incident with your friends at your next gathering and that's where it ends. You could also go to jail for the night on assault charges, lose your friends, lose your marriage and still not even make the local newspaper, but rather have your favorite Facebook friends cheer you on whilst forcing them to choose sides between you and your buddy that made the comment. You, me, our behavior is basically irrelevant to most people and all our behavior just falls back on us, hardly anyone else.

We need to break this down even further at this point then. Let's just get down to the brass tacks since we're already fully engaged in this conversation.

One, every Mother & teacher knows that when William slaps Christopher because Christopher said something mean it was wrong of William. William gets put in time out or grounded and is told "we don't hit people." Christopher gets a reprimand and is told "we don't say mean things." Both boys get in trouble because neither of them was right. Why we don't expect the same from adults is beyond me. This is "Golden Rule" beginner stuff.

Two, the centuries long era of toxic masculinity is coming to an end. Women don't need to be rescued. We are no longer damsels in distress without rights or a voice. Every woman can speak for herself and has the right to be heard and Jada is also an A List celebrity in her own right with her own following, reputation and platform. Jada could have easily issued a statement to her publicist or social media condemning the tasteless humor offered by Rock and it probably would have carried much more of a punch than that slap and yielded far less memes. She could have been more a part of this conversation since the real issue here was between Pinkett Smith & Rock being dismissive of her issues & insecurities around her medical condition.

Three, Smiths' choice to walk up and slap Rock really was just a self-centered move. This night wasn't about Rock or Smith or any ONE celebrity. This night was about so many other big moments for actors & actresses that have spent their entire lives to achieve the recognition and the awards being presented that night. It was a night of firsts for so many and lots of other big moments that were simply overlooked because of this slap. It was a night that represented a return to somewhat normality with a maskless, non-socially distanced red carpet walk without the virtually piped in acceptance speeches from celebs sporting their pajamas at home. A moment of silence was held for Ukraine. Ariana DeBose gave an incredibly inspiring acceptance speech as only the 2nd Latina & first openly queer woman of color to ever receive an Academy Award. My favorite and sweetest moment was Lady Gaga telling the ailing aging star, Liza Minelli, "I got you" and Minelli's response, "I know." These and so many more overlooked moments were all overshadowed. There were the kind of moments that were groundbreaking, trailblazing and important to many different communities that could have captured the spotlight & changed the conversation instead and yet, I had to go out of my way to look up websites to find out what else happened that night to hear about anything else that happened that night. Smith's actions ruined robbed deserving winners, even himself of a proper spotlight and made a mockery of the event itself. This is just selfish and rude. It's not unlike that guy who goes to a wedding and gets into a drunken fistfight with a groomsman over a girl and that's all anyone ends up remembering about the whole reception that the couple spent so many months and money planning.

Four, Rock, Smith & Pinkett Smith are literally role models to at LEAST two generations. In a world where it's so hard to establish a common ground of core values, celebrities represent the best and the worst of what we have to offer as a culture, as a people, in this particular zeitgeist. What we allow them to get away with is a reflection on our cultural value systems. They may be humans, but they are still representatives of our humanity & culture whether we agree with them or not. As humans, they are absolutely allowed to make mistakes, but when mistakes are viewed as calculated decisions it makes us question whether that was the right thing to do or not & what we would choose to do given the same situation, even if it isn't in front of millions of people. Every choice they make in the public eye they are WELL AWARE will have a public criticism and scrutiny. When celebrities make mistakes, then are called out, then move forward to make GENUINE pleas for forgiveness, acknowledgement and specifically (not blanket) apologize for their role & choices of words of behavior and then (and this is key) do not repeat the behavior as a pattern, we can then, as the public, recognize their humanity, give them & ourselves proper space to be mindful of destructive or reactive mindsets, then take better control when we are challenged in the future. It's this entire cycle of behavior that creates a necessity of mindfulness and modification ESPECIALLY if you have a belief that we are spiritual beings SHARING a human experience.

This type of mindfulness and modification is what I personally would want to see from our celebrity culture. It is something I acknowledge and respect from people within my own personal social spheres. I am completely aware that nobody is perfect. Perfection itself is an abstraction and something that does not actually exist. Cancel culture has definitely created a lot of tension particularly in the comedy industry and people are afraid to say what they think and feel, but maybe filters are necessary and maybe cancel culture should only be resorted to when someone has a toxic pattern or says things or acts in ways that are absolutely out of line where there is no grey area such as using derogatory slurs or being intentionally hurtful towards groups of people. Some comics, not all, just need to learn that making fun of people, especially for things they have no control over, is just not cool anymore. The cool kids have moved on to more inclusiveness even if the cool kids today look like the nerds of yesterday. Well, we are and we're tired of your jokes making fun of us that weren't funny in junior high and aren't funny now. Move on. There's SO MUCH MATERIAL you have available to you from around the entire world. This entire celebrity culture itself is a punchline & doesn't have to be offensive to any group of people.

Finally, a lot of celebrities, like Smith, literally grew up in front of our eyes. His entire life has been put on display including his mistakes and growth. We talk about his wife and watching his kids grow up like we know these people. We've seen Smith go from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to his first Blockbuster hit, Independence Day, to deeply moving human serious movies such as The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds. He's been an ingredient to shape the culture we see today. We've also seen Smith bloom in his career and that feeling of growing up with someone you've never even met makes you feel a personal connection to this stranger so you think, yeah "Will, defend your wife! We support you!" Truly, the last thing we need is more division in this world, but then we see things like "I'm team Will Smith" or "I'm team Chris Rock." This misses the entire point that they were both wrong. These are growing pains that not only offer an opportunity for growth for both of these men, but also for us as the general public. We need to challenge our own value systems and not get swept up into the drama and bias surrounding the demi-gods of culture.

Let me sum this up very simply. Making fun of people is wrong. Hitting people is also wrong. Expecting someone to physically assault someone in order to "defend your honor" isn't necessary either. When is it okay to hit someone? Well personally, I may be a pacifist, but I'm not going to be throwing shade at anyone who physically defends themselves against a violent attack. You never know what you'll do to protect yourself or the people you love until you are personally put into that situation & the adrenalin kicks in, but nobody was getting murdered at the Oscars (although Smith may have thought he was a goner once he got home after that "if looks could kill" look Jada gave him for laughing at Rocks' GI Jane crack). No matter how you frame it, both men were in the wrong and in this modern world, all Smith or Pinkett Smith had to do was use their platform to express how Rock's joke made either of them feel. That's it. I know that sounds boring. We crave the drama, but in 2022 the way to man up is to grow up. Whether we're watching or not, we're all going to have to hear about the choices you ultimately make and whether or not you're going to choose to evolve from those decisions.

Rant over.