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Well, it’s official. Telling a joke in public could get your ass kicked from the nicest guy in Hollywood; Jane Campion, Coda, and Questlove are practically lost in the ether; and the Oscars, a night intended to celebrate film achievement has basically become the MTV VMAs - an excuse to round up celebrities to do stupid shit and publicity stunts with little regard actually given to the work meant to be acknowledged.
They’re calling it “The Slap Heard Around the World.” At around 7:30 [pst], while presenting the award for Best Documentary, the iconically no holds barred comedian and Academy mainstay Chris Rock made an ad libbed joke about Jada Pinkett’s shaved head to a somewhat divisive response: an eye roll from Jada herself, a blurt of laughter from her husband, and a mix of modest laughs and groans from the crowd. Then, in a shockingly out of character action from Smith, who had made all the right moves giving poignant acceptance speeches at every guild and critics award this season and who had produced his way to a shoe in acting Oscar for a film about familial support, barged onto the stage head on like his number had been called at the DMV and depending on your outlet’s coverage sucker-slapped / bitch slapped / punched Chris Rock in the face. It was a G.I. Jane joke.
He then returned to his front row seat and twice yelled an obscene threat at Rock: “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth.” The audience shocked into silence almost immediately. Rock did his best to respond and proceed to present the award for Best Documentary, but made a few blunders.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Full Uncensored video of Will Smith’s altercation with Chris Rock at the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oscars?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Oscars</a> <a href="https://t.co/cGQ3plSEiz">pic.twitter.com/cGQ3plSEiz</a></p>— Movies (@moreoffilms) <a href="https://twitter.com/moreoffilms/status/1508277114398978048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The rest of the night was a writeoff, save for Smith’s tear-filled acceptance speech which contained an apology though notably not directed at Rock. Big statue handout moments were practically forgotten as people texted friends, scrolled through feeds, and created memes. Casualties included Jessica Chastain who won on her third nomination, Jane Campion who became the third woman to win a Best Director award, Coda which won the award for Best Picture off of three total nominations (a feat that hasn’t been achieved in nearly 100 years), and Questlove who was put in the terrible position of accepting his award immediately after the altercation (Rock clearly in a daze referred to his fellow nominees as “four white people). Amy Schumer’s jokes about “the vibe changing” in the room because she had to get out of her Spiderman costume, fell flat to polite and stunned laughter and her diversion by mentioning genocide in the Ukraine did not fare much better (jesus where are Steve Martin and Billy Crystal when you need them?).
Things were made even worse when Sean Combs had to clear the air and introduce a 50 year anniversary Godfather tribute set to “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” by Kanye West.
The discourse was stoked immediately like a pour out of gasoline onto a firepit. Notable comedians like Judd Apatow and Jeff Ross were quick to defend Rock, others like Tiffany Haddish and Twitter overlord Nicki Minaj saw beauty in a Black Man defending his wife. The Oscars released a statement saying they do not condone violence. The New York Post pointed out that a code of conduct implemented in 2017 after the Weinstein era enforces a strict policy against assault and that Smith may actually be in contention to have his Oscar revoked.
Many are pointing fingers to Rock’s 2016 Oscar hosting gig in which Rock made a much less edgy joke regarding Pinkett-Smith’s boycott of the Oscars in response to Will’s lack of nomination for the laughable Concussion. Though if you know your Academy history, Rock had already established himself as the Edgelord of the Oscars nearly 20 years before.
It was 1999. Chris Rock after releasing the HBO special one-two punch of Bring the Pain and Bigger and Blacker was nothing short of the most important standup comedian on the planet. Loud, raucous, energetic, physical and dead-on on his subjects, he came to embody something of the Richard Pryor for the Y2K era. With the American Film Institute still holding major influence on the film’s we consider classic, Elia Kazan was given the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award, or in other words an insurance policy that the Oscars can technically award their biggest snubs including Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Peter O’Toole. Kazan, a theatre and cinema institution and the man who brought some of Tennesee Williams’ most lauded work to stage and screen had actually won a statue for On the Waterfront in 1954 despite losing for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951 to George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun. The honour was met with controversy through silent protests from actors like Nick Nolte and Ed Harris in response to Kazan’s appearance in 1952 in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities at the height of McCarthyism where he delivered the names of eight of his friends and colleagues from the Group Theatre as members of the American Communist Party.
That night he was fittingly given the award by Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro who almost looked like his bodyguards. He was met with half applause and half silence.
Then came Chris Rock for his first ever appearance at the show who was enlisted to present the award for Sound Editing. He had two jokes: one about the Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the other: “You better get Kazan away from De Niro because, you know, he hates rats,” the crowd groaned and jeered along with their initial mandatory polite laughter. Nobody remembered it and the ceremony went on. Whoopi Goldberg told more jokes. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Cinderella moment and Saving Private Ryan losing to Shakespeare in Love due to Harvey Weinstein’s aggressive campaigning techniques became the far bigger story of the night. Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, the Ghost of Joseph McCarthy, Deniro and Scorsese did not approach the stage to whack Chris Rock in the face.
Perhaps this says something about the state of humour and opinion in our post-woke world and how a joke seemingly at the expense of a woman’s medical condition is so off limits that it warrants a man to assault another man on the world’s most visible stage without a unanimous reaction considering it wrong in every way. Perhaps it says something about how the Oscars, once the epitome of class and glamour, is now nothing more than a way for ABC to boost ratings and second round ticket sales for second tier movies, notice how security did not eject Smith despite the LAPD commenting on the situation. The fact that eight technical categories were shoved into a pre-ceremony now seems like a forgotten footnote in the wake of SlapGate. Chris Rock will likely never host again, a bummer since his 2017 run was one of the best. Will Smith’s approval rating has sunk lower than when he went almost 10 years without releasing anything worth watching. Even the major category takehomes will be forgotten in what was a pretty great year for the movies returning to theatres.
The biggest takeaway though is the amount of people who will walk away from last night and think that by any measure, hitting a man on a public stage is a sane way of dealing with a problem and that punishing a man for his verbal remarks by responding physically is in any way a display of affection. The Will Smith that I’ve known for 30 years who was an all around class act up until 7:30 [pst] last night would have taken three deep breaths and used his inevitable acceptance speech to fire a few jokes back at Rock and then thank his wife and family, to a cheering audience on his side and an apology from Rock. Instead, we received a mute reaction from a stunned audience and a deft apology from an actor who otherwise should have had a major response from finally receiving the accolade he had been seeking after a storied career. Clarifying that his tears were not in response to winning the award and instead out of exhaustion for having to defend his family, he revoked himself from his own moment. At least he didn’t end it with “I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody.”
Well, it’s official. Telling a joke in public could get your ass kicked from the nicest guy in Hollywood; Jane Campion, Coda, and Questlove are practically lost in the ether; and the Oscars, a night intended to celebrate film achievement has basically become the MTV VMAs - an excuse to round up celebrities to do stupid shit and publicity stunts with little regard actually given to the work meant to be acknowledged.
They’re calling it “The Slap Heard Around the World.” At around 7:30 [pst], while presenting the award for Best Documentary, the iconically no holds barred comedian and Academy mainstay Chris Rock made an ad libbed joke about Jada Pinkett’s shaved head to a somewhat divisive response: an eye roll from Jada herself, a blurt of laughter from her husband, and a mix of modest laughs and groans from the crowd. Then, in a shockingly out of character action from Smith, who had made all the right moves giving poignant acceptance speeches at every guild and critics award this season and who had produced his way to a shoe in acting Oscar for a film about familial support, barged onto the stage head on like his number had been called at the DMV and depending on your outlet’s coverage sucker-slapped / bitch slapped / punched Chris Rock in the face. It was a G.I. Jane joke.
He then returned to his front row seat and twice yelled an obscene threat at Rock: “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth.” The audience shocked into silence almost immediately. Rock did his best to respond and proceed to present the award for Best Documentary, but made a few blunders.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Full Uncensored video of Will Smith’s altercation with Chris Rock at the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Oscars?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Oscars</a> <a href="https://t.co/cGQ3plSEiz">pic.twitter.com/cGQ3plSEiz</a></p>— Movies (@moreoffilms) <a href="https://twitter.com/moreoffilms/status/1508277114398978048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The rest of the night was a writeoff, save for Smith’s tear-filled acceptance speech which contained an apology though notably not directed at Rock. Big statue handout moments were practically forgotten as people texted friends, scrolled through feeds, and created memes. Casualties included Jessica Chastain who won on her third nomination, Jane Campion who became the third woman to win a Best Director award, Coda which won the award for Best Picture off of three total nominations (a feat that hasn’t been achieved in nearly 100 years), and Questlove who was put in the terrible position of accepting his award immediately after the altercation (Rock clearly in a daze referred to his fellow nominees as “four white people). Amy Schumer’s jokes about “the vibe changing” in the room because she had to get out of her Spiderman costume, fell flat to polite and stunned laughter and her diversion by mentioning genocide in the Ukraine did not fare much better (jesus where are Steve Martin and Billy Crystal when you need them?).
Things were made even worse when Sean Combs had to clear the air and introduce a 50 year anniversary Godfather tribute set to “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” by Kanye West.
The discourse was stoked immediately like a pour out of gasoline onto a firepit. Notable comedians like Judd Apatow and Jeff Ross were quick to defend Rock, others like Tiffany Haddish and Twitter overlord Nicki Minaj saw beauty in a Black Man defending his wife. The Oscars released a statement saying they do not condone violence. The New York Post pointed out that a code of conduct implemented in 2017 after the Weinstein era enforces a strict policy against assault and that Smith may actually be in contention to have his Oscar revoked.
Many are pointing fingers to Rock’s 2016 Oscar hosting gig in which Rock made a much less edgy joke regarding Pinkett-Smith’s boycott of the Oscars in response to Will’s lack of nomination for the laughable Concussion. Though if you know your Academy history, Rock had already established himself as the Edgelord of the Oscars nearly 20 years before.
It was 1999. Chris Rock after releasing the HBO special one-two punch of Bring the Pain and Bigger and Blacker was nothing short of the most important standup comedian on the planet. Loud, raucous, energetic, physical and dead-on on his subjects, he came to embody something of the Richard Pryor for the Y2K era. With the American Film Institute still holding major influence on the film’s we consider classic, Elia Kazan was given the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award, or in other words an insurance policy that the Oscars can technically award their biggest snubs including Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Peter O’Toole. Kazan, a theatre and cinema institution and the man who brought some of Tennesee Williams’ most lauded work to stage and screen had actually won a statue for On the Waterfront in 1954 despite losing for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951 to George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun. The honour was met with controversy through silent protests from actors like Nick Nolte and Ed Harris in response to Kazan’s appearance in 1952 in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities at the height of McCarthyism where he delivered the names of eight of his friends and colleagues from the Group Theatre as members of the American Communist Party.
That night he was fittingly given the award by Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro who almost looked like his bodyguards. He was met with half applause and half silence.
Then came Chris Rock for his first ever appearance at the show who was enlisted to present the award for Sound Editing. He had two jokes: one about the Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the other: “You better get Kazan away from De Niro because, you know, he hates rats,” the crowd groaned and jeered along with their initial mandatory polite laughter. Nobody remembered it and the ceremony went on. Whoopi Goldberg told more jokes. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Cinderella moment and Saving Private Ryan losing to Shakespeare in Love due to Harvey Weinstein’s aggressive campaigning techniques became the far bigger story of the night. Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, the Ghost of Joseph McCarthy, Deniro and Scorsese did not approach the stage to whack Chris Rock in the face.
Perhaps this says something about the state of humour and opinion in our post-woke world and how a joke seemingly at the expense of a woman’s medical condition is so off limits that it warrants a man to assault another man on the world’s most visible stage without a unanimous reaction considering it wrong in every way. Perhaps it says something about how the Oscars, once the epitome of class and glamour, is now nothing more than a way for ABC to boost ratings and second round ticket sales for second tier movies, notice how security did not eject Smith despite the LAPD commenting on the situation. The fact that eight technical categories were shoved into a pre-ceremony now seems like a forgotten footnote in the wake of SlapGate. Chris Rock will likely never host again, a bummer since his 2017 run was one of the best. Will Smith’s approval rating has sunk lower than when he went almost 10 years without releasing anything worth watching. Even the major category takehomes will be forgotten in what was a pretty great year for the movies returning to theatres.
The biggest takeaway though is the amount of people who will walk away from last night and think that by any measure, hitting a man on a public stage is a sane way of dealing with a problem and that punishing a man for his verbal remarks by responding physically is in any way a display of affection. The Will Smith that I’ve known for 30 years who was an all around class act up until 7:30 [pst] last night would have taken three deep breaths and used his inevitable acceptance speech to fire a few jokes back at Rock and then thank his wife and family, to a cheering audience on his side and an apology from Rock. Instead, we received a mute reaction from a stunned audience and a deft apology from an actor who otherwise should have had a major response from finally receiving the accolade he had been seeking after a storied career. Clarifying that his tears were not in response to winning the award and instead out of exhaustion for having to defend his family, he revoked himself from his own moment. At least he didn’t end it with “I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody.”
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