Like all things, this too has also passed. Or at least the shock of it all.
I can still remember being excited that Chris Rock was coming across the stage to present. I love Chris Rock. I love how he and comedians like him take no prisoners and make it part of their job to blow up all egos. That’s why those of us who appreciate comedians, appreciate them.
The favorite part for me of late night talk shows, especially when I used to watch them regularly as a kid, was watching the comic guest. Late Night with Conan O’Brien often featured a comedian on his show. And these were not well-known comedians or those who were also actors. Or at least I didn’t really recognize them. They were working comedians. And I loved most of them. I find myself drawn to all of them for various reasons. But I had extra respect for those who were okay with pushing the envelope. For calling things out. For being okay with taking people or systems that deserved to be taken down a notch.
I’m not saying I agree with everything or the way these jokes are made. But after going to business school and going into the corporate world, I found that even as a grown ass adult who achieved higher education and basically led a very “perfect” life for like my entire life, I realized that I couldn’t actually be myself unless my self was the neutral, happy, always positive version. I wasn’t allowed to be angry or upset or disagreeable. I couldn’t make a mistake.
When you grow up and start working for someone else, you suddenly realize that appearances really matter. Maybe not for you, but definitely for your company and their brand. This is even more amplified if you yourself are a brand like a Will Smith.
I once worked in the corporate side of a bank and everything you did was under scrutiny even if it was during your off time. One of the many things I did in my position included investigating human resource infractions on social media. I was once forwarded this long email chain of forwards of forwards and screencaps. I recall being annoyed because I didn’t agree with reading through people’s private messages, but I get that as per “policy”, this was apparently fair game.
Some narc at the bank screencapped a couple of bank employees who had taken a picture of themselves holding up a champagne bottle at a holiday party of some sort. What bothered me was that the narc had screencapped this from a private Facebook page and took it upon themselves to forward it and flag it with HR or their managers. This clutching pearls offense was passed around and around and made its way to the top executive at the bank. He, thank God, had some common sense and basically was like who gives an ish and didn’t care for it. Exactly. And that’s why he gets paid the big bucks. However, I still had to see if I could find any trace of this “offensive” photograph on these people’s social media accounts as they were asked to delete them. I didn’t find any so that was the end of that.
I’m glad I did do that as part of my work as that taught me how crazy controlling companies can be over their own employees. And it doesn’t matter if they’re hourly workers (who I believe the women I had to investigate were). Their arms around your neck extend beyond working hours and even into your own private social media pages. It totally disgusted me and that’s when I disconnected all of my social accounts and created dummy ones to do work with. And I made sure to warn everyone I worked with to do the same. I basically quit social media then and only had dummy accounts as I ironically worked in social media but on the strategy and insights side. My work wasn’t the “fun” side of social media, but the serious and annoying analysis side.
What bothered me the most was how appearances would override the reality. I would see certain bank executives post these really nauseating Go team!I love my job! And I love my family! type of bullshit posts on their carefully curated Twitter or LinkedIn feeds when we all knew they were angry, miserable people who had been divorced or were going through a divorce or had questionable family situations, and treated their employees horribly.
I don’t care if someone is divorced or going through rough family situations. Everyone has issues and things that happen that can’t be part of a curated social media account. I just hated how hypocritical and strange that these people would insist on posting content that gave the appearance that they led this grand life the way the bank commercials portrayed family life to be.
But I finally understood like the OG’s I worked with understood that that’s how it rolls. It’s all about keeping up with the appearances for these people because it’s all about keeping up with appearances at the job. And even if you don’t have a job. You gotta keep up with appearances for society. We all have a “brand” or a way the world perceives and therefore accepts us. If we take detours or dare to switch lanes, the world around us can’t handle it. You’re supposed to behave the way the world expects you to. There’s appearances to uphold!
When Will Smith walked up those stairs and onto the Oscars stage and slapped Chris Rock, I honestly thought it was a joke. The angle on the TV was such that it didn’t look as if his hand made contact although there was a clear sound from the smack. It was only when Will started cursing Chris out from his seat and the volume was muted that it was apparent that this was not a comedy skit.
As a huge fan of both Will Smith and Chris Rock, I was more than willing to give both sides the benefit of the doubt. Give them all sorts of excuses and explanations as to why this unprecedented event just occurred. I’m sure those who hate either Will or Chris or don’t care for “Hollywood” stars didn’t care, but as a fan, I do care. When it first happened, my reaction was something’s wrong with Will, but I hope Chris is okay and they should remove Will from the scene of the crime.
I had gone into the Oscars with fingers crossed hoping and waiting for Will to finally win his Oscar as he was our icon growing up. Our childhood was basically Fresh Prince, Summertime, Men In Black, and Independence Day. I just took a look at the list of films Will Smith was in and me and my siblings have gone to the movies just to see Will Smith starting with Independence Day and all the way through I Am Legend. And yes, we did pay to see Wild Wild West and I liked the movie and his song with Sisqo! But now I was waiting for Will to win, so he could rectify what just happened. I was certain he was going to get to the point and apologize to Chris and then go into his actual speech. Instead, we got this weird, rambling monologue about how God and some higher force is calling on him to be some male savior for women.
I winced because that’s the default alibi whenever these disgusting and unfortunately usually Republican fanatics rely on when they get caught in a scandal. It’s always about my God or the Devil or some imaginary friend who led them astray. And Will Smith had to shout out Denzel for saying how when you’re at your highest is when the Devil comes or whatever. No, the Devil didn’t guide you up the stairs. You did it yourself. Just own up to it and apologize to the guy you just hit and let’s move forward. In a way, it would’ve been better had Will been removed, so we wouldn’t have had to experience that embarrassing acceptance speech.
The next day, I saw pictures of Will partying it up with his family and then there was the explosion of opinions that were so twisted and mangled to support the more extreme views. It’s not the same topic being discussed here, but the way people tried to justify their wrong opinions is no different than when you hear those MAGA crazies or Covidiots try to justify whatever insanity they’re doing. Now, everyone is free to feel and think whatever they want but we all know that not everyone is right and some are wrong. And it is wrong to believe that what Will did to Chris was in any way right. There’s a reason why there’s laws against that sort of thing. That’s because it’s WRONG.
Looking at Will’s filmography, I haven’t gone to a Will Smith movie in 10 years. The last one we saw was Men In Black 3. I watched most of Gemini Man on a long haul flight, but I fell asleep and woke up when it ended. I wanted to see King Richard, but I’ll wait for it to be available on streaming. I also never understood what this Red Table Talk thing was until this slap incident occurred and people were going on about Jada and some guy named August.
After reading all of that and learning more about Will and his family’s background, I can understand where everyone is coming from. Though it does not excuse the assault on Chris Rock, it explains maybe why keeping up with appearances became too hard to do at that moment. Even though we don’t know who these people are, we probably are all familiar with that couple or family situation. It’s very sad to see and something’s gotta give.
I hear a lot of critics and pundits and media personalities talk about Will’s brand and how this incident may tarnish his legacy, and it’s like there we go again about appearances. If you’re a true fan and if you’re a human being, then you should give Will and his family space to be messy and imperfect and whatever it is they need to be at this point in their lives. The only messy thing they have to fix that’s immediate is the apology and repair that’s needed with what Will did to Chris. Everything else, let them do what they need to do.
The announcement from the Academy that Will would be banned from Academy events or programs for 10 years is too harsh. A 5-year ban or a mix of 3 years no events and no eligibility of nominations would have been a faster but fairer approach. What is missing is where are the punishments for the producers of the event and the heads of the Academy? They allowed this to drag on and on without any sort of proper resolution. Is there no security at this event? Are there no rules about being kicked out of the event if you are drunk or being belligerent?
It again reminds me and should remind all of us that what happened between these two actors at a work event is similar to what happens in the everyday boring corporate world. When have we witnessed employees behave badly and there’s a slap on the wrist and management and HR don’t get any repercussions? I’ve seen it millions of times and I’m sure you have, too. And the person who did bad always bounced back. Either they were kept on and then later quit, but they always ended up with a similar role or higher role at some other random corporation. And the people in charge and in HR remained. All these fakes still tweeting and posting bullshit about how they care about their employees and love their jobs and they’ll wear their pink shirts for anti-bullying day. Give me a break.
Ten years is a long time for someone of Will’s age. He’s 53 and will be 54 this year. He’s technically as a male actor peaking or starting to age out. Many things can happen in ten years and I’m certain a few years into those ten years, Will would have more than enough time to have his time out and learn from what has happened.
My hope is that Will gets the help and care that he needs as it’s clear he is going through something and has been for a long time. He doesn’t have to uphold the nicest guy in Hollywood façade because he is a nice guy. And all nice guys will have bad days and bad moments and I’m okay with that. But I’ll be more okay once Will does the right thing and makes amends with Chris. We still haven’t heard about a personal conversation and apology between the two, yet and that is what is needed for the healing season to begin.
And I hope Chris gets the help he needs and is supported while he processes this. He was a professional and a gentleman about the situation. We can only imagine how alone he felt when everyone was rushing to Will’s side and making sure he was okay while he was left alone on the stage to carry on.
I’ve seen the TikTok’s and memes making fun of the slap. For Chris, it must be a hard thing to stomach that your assault is being viewed as something that is funny and can be taken lightly in the form of a social media trend. You can see how peculiar it is for a segment of the population to view a violent assault as no big deal but something to be haha about. But I guess it’s like when people make fun of the time Mike Tyson biting a bit of Evander Holyfield’s ear off. But we can only imagine how traumatizing and scary it was for Evander that a part of his body was just mutilated.
For all the talk about Will and Will’s legacy, let’s not forget about Chris Rock’s legacy. Will is an icon, but I will dare say that in Chris Rock’s genre of comedy, he is further up the chain than Will. Chris Rock is a legend in his field. He’s a pioneer and innovator in his field. If you look up greatest comedians of all time, Chris is on the list. If you look up lists for greatest actors of all time, you won’t find Will Smith there. I’m not trying to pit the two against each other, but what’s lost in this conversation about the slap is that a legend in his field was disrespected and assaulted. And where is the respect for Chris Rock’s legacy and body of work?
Ultimately, I hope that both of them will not lose fans or opportunities once some more time passes and it’s time to move forward from this. It would be AMAZING if/when they make amends that Chris can be integrated into Bad Boys 4. I still remember when me and my family went to an evening show to see Lethal Weapon 4. That was so fun and I loved Chris Rock in it. Chris can definitely be part of the Bad Boys crew.
For all the worries about your brand and appearances, I think it’s time we loosen our grip on that fake reality. Most of us know that even the most “perfect” people have issues and it’s okay. What’s not okay is pretending like bad things don’t exist and not working things out. My best to Chris, Will, and Jada. I hope everyone gets the help they need and are okay. I’m still a big fan of all of them and I don’t care about their brands or whatever being tarnished.
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