Memo to any fan of the Academy Awards who thought the incorrect 2017 Best Picture announcement could never be topped: It only took five years to prove you wrong.
Most people didn’t see what happened live Sunday night. That’s because the Oscars have lost something like 70% of their viewing audience in the last few years because its voters insist on giving nominations and awards to movies that the public rarely sees.
But if you skipped the show, you missed one of those surprising moments that live television sometimes delivers.
Comedian Chris Rock, on stage to present the Best Documentary award, made a joke about Will Smith’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith. She has barely any hair due to alopecia, an auto-immune disease that causes hair loss.
Pinkett Smith has spoken publicly about the condition, and Rock compared her look to Demi Moore’s in the film “G.I. Jane.” The camera cut to the Smiths, and showed the husband laughing while the wife rolled her eyes.
A few seconds later, Rock said “uh oh” as Will Smith walked onto the stage. He slapped Rock hard on the cheek.
ABC cut the sound from the broadcast for several seconds, but the camera clearly showed Smith, by then back in his seat, cursing Rock and shouting at him to keep his wife’s name out of Rock’s act.
It was an unbelievably classless act by Smith, made even more embarrassing by the fact that 40 minutes later he won the Best Actor award, as expected, for his role in “King Richard,” playing the father of Venus and Serena Williams.
Any husband would understand Smith being upset by a joke about his wife’s appearance, especially when illness is involved. So how come Smith was laughing when Rock first said it?
But more to the point, Sunday night was just one more example of somebody acting foolish when they know better. If you’re going to confront a guy who’s teasing your wife, national TV is not the place to do it. Follow that up by getting caught on camera using language that used to be unacceptable in public and it all says too much about your character.
Will Smith and his wife have got to be millionaires many times over. Hollywood and the viewing public have been very good to them. His peers showed their respect Sunday night by voting him Best Actor. Mystifyingly, he chose that very night to do something that most people will remember more than his award.
Was Rock out of line? If so, not by much. He’s paid to make jokes, and let’s put it this way — he’s said a lot worse over his career.
In fact, Rock made fun of both Smiths six years ago about his being overpaid for a bad movie and her boycotting the Oscars. Maybe Will Smith hadn’t gotten over that one. But he and his wife are paid a hefty premium to be teased now and then.
On stage a second time after winning the Oscar, Smith apologized to the academy and his fellow Best Actor nominees. He did not apologize to Rock, waiting until Monday to do that.
Smith, in tears, noted that Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family, and said he felt a responsibility to be a protector, too.
Good for him. But not at the cost of the respect he worked for years to build. That was the price of Sunday’s mindless moment.
At the end of the night, it fell to class act Denzel Washington to tell Smith how badly he had behaved. CNN reported that moments after the slap, Washington and Tyler Perry were talking to Smith. During his Best Actor acceptance speech, Smith told the audience that Washington warned him, “At your highest moment, be careful — that’s when the devil comes for you.”
Wise words from a good man. Hopefully Will Smith was listening.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
