Researched by: Sara Varghese & Prafula Grace Busi

Where we are now…

The recap: So Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock on the Oscars stage for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett on the Oscars stage. Rock said: ​​“Jada, can’t wait for GI Jane 2”—referring to her shaved head. Why this was insensitive: Pinkett has been open about her hair loss due to alopecia—though it is not clear if Rock knew about it. Smith first offered a non-apology during his acceptance speech—and then directly apologised to Rock in an Instagram post.

Here’s a visual breakdown of the incident if you need it:

The fallout for Smith: Rock has declined to press charges, and the Academy’s initial tweet said it does not “condone violence of any form.” But it has now issued a statement that says:

“The Academy condemns the actions of Mr Smith at last night's show. We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our Bylaws, Standards of Conduct and California law.”

And sources inside the Academy said its members had “strongly considered” removing Smith from the ceremony—but decision makers were not able to coordinate in time to take a call. Also: a dozen influential members held a virtual meeting—described as “heated” and “divided”—but could not agree on what action to take.

Point to note: The Academy has yanked the membership of the likes of Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein—both for sexual crimes—but they got to keep their Oscars.

The fallout for the Oscars: Viewership numbers soared to 15.4 million—up 56% from last year. But that number is still lower than the 2020 ratings.

The fallout for Chris Rock: The comedian seemed to carry on with business as usual—attending an after-party after the ceremony, His buddy P Diddy claims that the two men are now “brothers”—but Rock has not made a single public statement thus far. The silver lining: ticket sales for his upcoming comedy tour have spiked. And the cheapest ticket has increased from $46 to $411.

As for Jada Pinkett: In her first public comment, she put out an Insta post that only said: “This is a season for healing. And I’m here for it.”

A roundup of hot takes

The Slap served as an ink-blot test—as in, everyone saw what they were already primed to see. As Ryan Broderick puts it:

“[A]n awards show is the perfect kind thing to bring every pocket of Twitter user out of the woodwork. It’s essentially the school assembly that all the app’s different insane cliques have to attend. And then they use it to project whatever weird fixation they have on the rest of the platform’s users.”

And this holds all the more true when race is in play.

Interpretation #1: One version is that while Smith’s actions were wrong, they need to be understood in the context of racial bullying:

“Chris Rock, backed by freedom of expression, can lob rhetorical jabs against Jada Pinkett Smith and claim protection by saying he was joking. In that instance, for Will and Jada Smith, it was no joke, but a kind of bullying that marginalised groups—particularly Black women—have all experienced at some moment. It does not excuse Smith's subsequent actions, but contextualises them.”

Interpretation #2: The above holds even more true for a joke about Pinkett’s hair—or lack thereof—since Black women’s hair has long been an excuse for verbal abuse:

“Racism and patriarchy have taught Black women and ultimately made them believe that their natural beauty was ugly, undesired and needed to be changed to fit in culturally…

 

Some argue that Smith was protecting his wife, but Rock, in a room full of his peers, could've decided to not tell a distasteful joke about a Black woman. That is also a form of protecting Black women, especially since our hair and how we choose to wear it has been the butt of jokes for generations.”

Interpretation #3: Others pointed to Smith’s childhood in a family wracked with domestic violence—a trigger that caused him to act precisely in the ways he claims to despise:

“Something happened where he did not live the ‘Will’ he wants to live; that can happen to any of us. He doesn’t want to be the person who slaps somebody around like his dad slapped somebody around, but yet that’s what happened last night.”

Interpretation #4: focuses less on Smith’s actions than on the white reaction to it. Tayo Bero writes:

“Most people agree the slap shouldn’t have happened. But there’s something that feels precious at best, and downright racist at worst, about white people’s reaction to the now-infamous smack… It would seem that there’s a layer of hyper-violence that’s being projected on to Smith simply because he is a Black man who was defending his Black wife.”

Not sold on Smith: Karen Attiah in Washington Post points out the “other power dynamics” at play:

“It’s impossible not to notice that Smith attacked a smaller Black man. In the same situation, would he have taken the risk of slapping a larger, stronger guy, or a powerful White male celebrity who had made the same joke? I doubt it. And would Smith have gotten away with it—the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Monday it is investigating—if he hadn’t spent decades cultivating a nonthreatening, squeaky-clean image? I doubt that, too.”

Also this: Joseph Harker in The Guardian says he doesn’t worry about the damage caused by “the sight of a Black man resorting to violence”—since “Smith is so mainstream that, in many people’s eyes, he’s almost become raceless.” Harker is far more offended that Smith invoked Richard Williams—father of Venus and Serena—in his defence:

“Smith has proved himself to be no Richard Williams—a man who faced extraordinary abuse, ridicule and violence while coaching his daughters—and who never once responded in kind. Evoking his name to justify his own actions was the lowest of blows by Smith. Smith’s win should have been an opportunity to highlight Williams’ superhuman drive and self-belief, but instead has become a story about a man’s inability to control his emotions.”

Point to note: The only consistent race-driven trend The Atlantic could discern is that white folks were far more outraged than the Black community by the entire incident.

Data point to note: Despite all the debate and dissension on social media, a US poll shows that 61% of those surveyed agree—across racial and gender lines—that slapping people is not acceptable behaviour.

About that ‘Protector’ complex…

The Will Smith defence: In his acceptance speech, Smith laid out the clearest defence of his actions—albeit in a rambling way. He started by mentioning Richard Williams—and three women actors in the film he won an Oscar for—’King Richard’:

“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family… Making this film I got to protect Aunjanue Ellis, who is one of the most strongest, most delicate people I ever met. I got to protect Saniyya and Demi, the two actresses that played Venus and Serena. I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people.”

And at the end, he circled back to the theme of protection—this time in a oblique reference to The Slap: 

“Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said. I look like the crazy father just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things… Being able to love and care for my mother, my family, my wife.”

The day after the Oscars, Smith offered the same defence, but in plainer words: “Jokes at my expense are part of the job, but a joke about Jada's medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.”

Point to note: At least some Black women embraced Smith’s defence, such as comedian Tiffany Haddish, who said:

“When I saw a Black man stand up for his wife. That meant so much to me… And maybe the world might not like how it went down, but for me, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”

The ‘toxic masculinity’ critique: was everywhere, of course. Both in the US media and in Indian outlets like The Print, where Shubangi Misra writes, “Men, in the name of love, resort to violence without remorse. Let’s call assault what it is—a giant red flag.” But few in India stated the obvious: Will Smith’s testosterone-fueled violence didn’t shock Indian women—but, in fact, looked all too familiar. 

A very familiar machismo: In a 2019 Hindu essay, Rajeev Bhargava points out that “manhood” is not something that is given to Indian boys—but has to be achieved by them:

“To be born a boy is a privilege but one that can be lost if one is not properly initiated into masculine practices. Besides, male adults must maintain this privilege by regular performance. They must demonstrate that they are real men, manly, rather than womanly men. And what better way of doing so than by good, solid walloping?... A ‘real’ man is eager to pick up a fight. If he does not, he is told to wear bangles on his wrist.”

A Bollywood cliche: The trope of The Protector is so deeply embedded in our cinematic psyche—that it is almost unremarkable. We are more likely to call out a Kabir Singh for being a dangerous stalker—and overlook the fact that he routinely beat up other men to defend his ‘bandi’. In fact, the movie’s star Kiara Advani sounded a lot like Tiffany Haddish when she offered this defence of his toxic character: “For me, it is ok to be a protective lover but there is a thin line between becoming an obsessive lover and a protective one. Kabir is not obsessive, he is a protective lover.”

As Feminism In India notes, without the helpless woman, there can be no ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ in our movies. She is key to the construction of their respective personas:

“We see ‘brave’ men fighting the villains, while the heroines are seen struggling and screaming loudly. The best they are able to do is beat their hands against the villains’ shoulders and chest, who in turn is unaffected by it. The villain is either shouting misogynist remarks or staring at her lasciviously. The hero comes in like a macho man and with a single punch, he [sends] the villain flying in slow motion. The heroine then hugs her saviour feeling safe in his arms, hence reinforcing the notion that women are physically weaker than men and that they are meant to be protected from potential threats (rape & molestation) by ‘other’ men.”

Not buying the schtick: The bharatiya naari. We got a rare glimpse of women’s weariness with this discourse of “protection” on an episode of Aamir Khan’s ‘Satyamev Jayate’ show back in 2014:

“Khan, a star of blockbuster movies, asked men in the studio audience what words they would use to describe a real man. Brave? Protector? Strong? But the women in the audience struck down each of the words. They offered other attributes—emotionally weak, egoist, aggressive, angry. And definitely not ‘protectors.’”

The bottomline: Let’s revisit that last line: Definitely not protectors. Maybe we need an Indian woman to send that memo to Will Smith.

Reading list

The Complex has a good piece on the rocky history between Will Smith and Chris Rock. New York magazine has a funny list of all the hot takes on The Slap. Washington Post looks at Smith’s increasing candour about his personal life which he labels ‘radical honesty.’ Of the many analyses of The Slap, we found these essays in The Atlantic and Washington Post to be the most level-headed. The Hindu has an excellent piece connecting Indian masculinity to social violence. Ryan Broderick captures everyone’s “pre viral exhaustion”—that sinking feeling when something happens and we already know what will happen on social media next… for days!