The Will Smith Oscar Slap

First of all nothing happens in a vacuum. Happiness is contagious and so is war. What was happening in the news before and after the broadcast found it’s way onto the stage. We are in an enraged world right now. And everyone feels vulnerable and fragile. Even those who seem to have the means to be protected from the worst of it.

It’s no coincidence that the word protect was the focal word in WS so called apology. What it looked like was a little boy who felt like he needed to be protected.

Then the joke. Did CR have the right to do that joke? Yes. Should he have been slapped for it? No. But it was lazy. And punching down. We could do a whole post about that. Another time. But CR is smart and there is more important stuff to do comedy about. And we have limited time. There is that feeling in the air. Plus GI Jane is dated. Though that’s the least of it. Plus the alopecia. Did he not know?

As long as we’re talking about it - I also didn’t love some of the other comedy. I thought the Timothy Shalimet JK what’s his name joke up top was mean. And the Covid test thing made me uncomfortable. Only Tim and Wanda in the museum made me really laugh.

Plus context. WS and JPS have been through it with BAFTA. CR should have known that. Read the room.

Then again the Red Table. When you open yourself and your lives up - but not really - there’s obviously more going on and most of you reading this have heard those things - then you opened yourselves up. It’s the Kardashian effect. If you play by those rules you have to play by those rules. But still.

And then the look. Can we really discuss this without discussing the look? But what the look didn’t say was walk on stage and hit him. Did it say: say something. Did it say I thought you said you were going to talk to him? Did it say why aren’t we in control here? But it was just a look.

But all of it - the context - the look - the heightened emotions - sheds like on why WS might want to get up and punch CR. Might want to. Not should want to. Or might get up. The lack of anger management at this level of resources available to someone is heartbreaking.

And in the end he literally crossed a line. We walked from the audience onto the stage. There’s a hacky line comedians use: I don’t come to your job and (put my feet up on your desk etc).

I keep thinking about what it must have felt like for both - well all three of them. Fear. Anger. Shame. Shock. Victim thinking. That weird distance you get from yourself and the world with Dissociative thinking.

And of all the bad decisions. Including the lack of an apology to CR in that 5 minute nervous breakdown.

Thank God for Jessica Chastain. She was heartfelt and classy and did the almost impossible job of uplifting the event. And for Lady Gaga and her compassion and caretaking. There was courage in both of them. Palpable. Courage is what we need. More courage.