Why was Will Smith so reacting to Chris Rock’s joke?
Chris Rock’s joke was about the physical condition alopecia, which forced Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, to shave her hair last year. There may be a lot of pain attached to that story. But at the Oscars, jokes are often made about those present in the room. This one clearly touched Will Smith personally.”
“It wasn’t immediately clear whether it was a joke or not. Stunts often happen at the Oscars. I think a lot of people in the room and at home thought this was such a stunt. But that soon turned out not to be the case and there was a very strange atmosphere in the room. You felt that in everything. It was widely expected that Will Smith would go on to win another Best Actor Oscar for his role in King Richard† Then it is of course difficult to send someone out of the room, which might have happened in other cases.”
Why is Will Smith doing this?
“I think only Will Smith knows that. He subsequently received his Oscar on stage and gave a very extensive and emotional speech. He partially responded to what he had done before, but with little insight into guilt. The actor apologized to the Academy and fellow nominees but not Chris Rock. †Love will make you do crazy things’, he said. Smith also drew a parallel with the role he had just won: Richard Williams, father of the Williams sisters. He said Williams always protected his family, indicating that’s what he’d done. But you can also protect your family without hitting anyone in the face.”
“I can’t see inside his head but Will Smith has in his documentary Best Shape of My Life told that as a child he witnessed his mother being beaten by his father. He said he felt very cowardly at the time for not trying to stop the violence. That seems like a big trauma, because he also said that he considered suicide when he was 13. If you look at it through that lens, that may help explain why he reacted so violently.”
Is this bad for his career?
“I think so. Much will depend on how it is handled in the coming days, but it will continue to haunt Will Smith. We’ll see how he spins it. If he hadn’t, he would have finally won his Oscar and things could only get better. But this will be detrimental to his career. I’m assuming he’ll still be around. He will now likely hold a crisis meeting with his communications team to see how he handles this further. But it is clear that there must be an apology and a better explanation than ‘I want to be a vessel for love.’”
“This should have been the best moment of his career, the culmination of so many years of work. But it has hit rock bottom. Such a moment will probably never come again. I don’t think his career is over, but I don’t know if he will ever be nominated for the Oscars again.”
What does this mean for the Oscars?
“It is yet another setback for the Oscars that have been searching for a long time. They have to reinvent themselves because the ratings are falling. They try to attract more viewers in a positive way, but this is rather something that is talked about shamefully. It’s a blot on the blazon: this will forever be the Oscars where a star climbed on stage to punch the host in the face and then got an Oscar.”
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