The title speaks for itself! That’s really all that needs to be said.
Just when you thought that the La La Land/Moonlight moment from five years ago couldn’t be topped as the most awkward and cringe inducing moment in the history of the Oscars, there comes Will Smith smacking Chris Rock straight in the face.
To provide some context of this big moment, while giving out a presentation at the Oscars, Chris Rock made a joke about Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith about her hairstyle, which is mostly a shaved head. Rock’s joke specifically referenced the movie G.I. Jane, a movie which actress Demi Moore shaved her heard in, and made a crack to Jada specifically saying he can’t wait for G.I. Jane 2.
There’s lies one huge problem here. Jada Pinkett Smith had recently been suffering from a hair loss condition called alopecia which has resulted with her being nearly bald. Needless to say, that joke was in INCREDIBLY poor taste to Smith (at least until he saw the reaction to Jada) and his wife.
Here’s is an uncensored clip of what undoubtedly will be one of the most (if not the most) talked about Oscars moments for plenty of years to come. Again, this is an uncensored version of it and you will hear a bit of language but if you want to see it for yourself, here’s a link from YouTube.
No doubt, everyone has opinions on it. Whether it’s who’s right, who’s wrong, if Will Smith should be charged for assault and have his Oscar revoked, if Chris Rock is just an incredibly tasteless comedian, or even if it was real or not?! Everyone will definitely have a take on this.
First off, I’m pretty sure that it was not scripted and it was definitely for real. If the slap itself wasn’t any indication, then Will Smith furiously shouting back at Chris Rock, dropping the f bomb certainly is. Secondly, there was also the events that followed after it went to commercial break. According to twitter source, Scott Feinberg, Smith was pulled aside once the break occurred and Denzel Washington and Tyler Perry came by him to calm him down. Will was seen wiping some tears off his eyes, sat back down with his wife, and Denzel came to the aid of the two couple. It’s then that the two waited to see if Will, an actor who will surely be remembered for that one infamous moment for the rest of his life will win his very first Oscar.
As it turns out, Will Smith did in fact win the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Richard Williams in the movie, King Richard. After receiving that award following that heated moment, he delivered quite a tearful if not downright awkward speech, where he (somewhat) apologizing for his actions to the Academy but not Chris Rock himself.
As much as I hate to be the person that wants to have a neutral opinion on this, I do think both sides could agree now that they could have handled that a thousand times better than they did. Deep down they wish they gave a split second thought of what they were about to do before they actually did it.
Rock clearly wanted to take back that joke he just said after seeing Jada’s not-so-enthused reaction to it along with seeing Will marching up stage to confront him. From his line delivery after that joke, it looked as if he regretted that joke and wanted to brush it off that it was nothing. He probably wanna to make a gesture and apologize either on-stage or off-stage to the Smiths.
Smith, while understandably wanting to stand up to his wife for that tasteless joke, deep down knows he should have settled that without violence. Maybe telling Rock to cool it or having a talk with him during commercial break about how offensive that joke was. Maybe then if Will Smith had won best picture, he could deliver an apology to Will and Jada and off a congratulation to Smith for winning his first ever Oscar.
Unfortunately in the case for both sides, this wasn’t a script that Hollywood was writing, this was the real deal. What’s done is done! No matter what the consequences are for this moment (or even if there is any at all), this will go down in history as a defining moment for the Academy. I just honestly wish it was a moment that we could all laugh at without feeling ashamed or making it anything personal.
For as embarrassing and cringeworthy the La La Land/Moonlight moment was, at least that was a moment that just about everyone could get a laugh at without the need for any feeling of guilt or shame with it. There wasn’t nothing personal about it or something I don’t anyone would take quite offense too. It was a honest mistake that I think everyone in the Academy and viewers could get a chuckle at. Plus, anyone that got to witness that event live would be able to tell their children or grand children many years down the line how they got to see with their own eyes one of the biggest blunders ever live on television.
As much as everyone is making jokes and memes about this moment while I am currently typing up this piece, I get the feeling that it will all come back to bite us as something we should have took a little more seriously. Regardless, no one can take back what happened last night. Whoever actually participated watching this year Oscars will surely look back at this moment and just remember how they were like, “What the f*ck just happened?!”
Other comments:
Update: It appears Chris Rock will not press charge against Will Smith, LADP reports.
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/chris-rock-police-report-will-smith-slap-oscars-1235216542/
Will Smith might be able to lose his Oscar for violating for breaking the Academy’s code of conduct.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/28/could-will-smith-lose-his-oscar-over-chris-rock-slap/
Adam's Blog 
My opinion is this: if it was just a joke, why didn’t Chris rehearse it? Chris stated he and the Smith’s were friends so how could he not know about Jada’s condition? The whole ordeal was because of the pain inflicted on Jada but the focus was on whether or not Will would be arrested and stripped of an award he EARNED. Did Woody Allen lose any of his awards? Harvey Weinstein, did he lose any privileges? I guess in Hollywood as in America, women are expendable commodities not worthy of protection.
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