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I am pretty amazed by this.

I am surprised at how much sympathy and support Will Smith is getting for his actions.  It's crazy to me.  There are some things where I'd just assume we're on the same side.  Not being able to physically assault a comedian on stage, then go sick back in your seat is one of those things.

I don't even really BLAME the Academy for screwing this up, because it was such a whirlwind in the moment.

But they 100% should have a hard line against physical assault on their performers.  Any place should.  Judging the appropriateness or insult of the joke itself misses the point.  Allowing Will Smith to sit there and ruin the night for everyone else who won an award after that, while he sucked all the oxygen out of the room was pretty awful.  Then giving him a platform to explain away his abuse and get a standing ovation was even more gross.

You just gotta get him out of there, accept the award on his behalf and move on.

I'm kinda shocked at the number of people I see explaining away crazy behavior and I'm stunned by it.

Maybe because you shouldn't be making fun of another man's wife who is suffering from a disease and the physical deformities/emotional stress that is caused by it.    If my wife was sick and someone else cracked a joke about it, they'd get a lot worse than bitch slapped.

You can't blame the victim though. Chris Rock didn't deserve to be hit for telling a joke no matter how Effed up the joke might have been. I think it's strange that Will Smith went from laughing at the joke to hitting the guy who told the joke.

My personal reaction (and going by the news and social media reactions, the rest of Australia) agree with you Dave.

Chris Rock's joke was in poor taste, but he's kind of known for that - plus the Oscars have a history of it, with quite a few past presenters roasting attendees in a very similar fashion without this kind of reaction. Would there have been a different reaction if Will Smith had got up and smacked Ricky Gervais in the mouth if he made the same joke? Or if it was Amy Schumer? What if it was a white actor who got up and slugged Chris Rock over a joke? It would be an absolute outrage.

Will Smith (so far) has got off lightly because it was a brother hitting another brother, and because he won an Oscar not long afterwards. This was an assault that should be dealt with, and IMO it doesn't matter if Rock presses charges or not - it was done on a live broadcast to millions of viewers, it should be a case of no contest.

I guess the ironic thing of this is if this happened backstage there would be a lot less fuss, albeit still a major story. But immediately assaulting a working comedian live on an international broadcast because you don't like his joke should be made an example of, and not in the way that happened.

Making fun of someone's race or disability is crossing the line.   Chris Rock deserved to get hit.   So did Kramer from Seinfeld when he shouted the N word on stage several times with several black people looking on.   He's lucky he didn't get a beatdown.

I'm glad I can always count on you for the worst take possible.

I happened to see this part live, I was switching between channels.  I heard the sound of him hitting Chris Rock, but I thought it was a joke.  The sound was then cut off and I couldn't hear what Will was saying after that, just the video of it.  I think Will Smith was way out of line, if he thought it was that bad of a joke he could have said so in interviews after the event.  She has hair loss, BFD.  She's had it for a couple years, not like it just started.  It's not like she's going to die from it.  It was a joke.

I didn't watch but the way it was discussed on the radio this morning,  Smith wasn't upset immediately. They said he had a smile and then Jada got in his ear. Many a man has found himself in a similar situation. These people all know each other as well. I don't condone the action but I can see why it happened.

His wife controls him and that's sad. Walks all over him, cheats on him and he is still there. He was fine with the joke until Jada wasn't and then we saw what we saw.

He is in his 50s, he should be someone other actors and people look up to like Denzel is, he shouldn't need to be calmed down BY Denzel.

I think it was wrong, also if it was The Rock up there instead of Rock, his ass would have stayed in that seat.

Scripted and fake to boost ratings and bring attention for awards shows no one watches anymore. 

My initial reaction too but then I saw the video a second time and think it was real. That's how untrained men fight, this isn't Hollywood. Surprised he even landed the slap and Rock was thinking that Smith was probably joking until the slap hit him.

Besides, maybe a temporary ratings boost in the moment but what person is going to watch in 2023 that wasn't already an Oscars viewer based off this one moment? You either like that unfunny garbage or you don't.

No chance.  That is as real as it gets.  Scripted by whom?  You think Will Smith ruined his career for the Oscars?

Alopecia is a medical condition. While it's typically worse for women, it's a real stretch to call it a disability.

Deafness is a disability. The real tragedy is that at these awards, a deaf Actor won the best supporting male category, and CODA about a deaf family won best film - and they're not getting the attention they deserve (and probably never will) because of what Will Smith did.

Live Dave said in the opening post, he should have been thrown out of the room after incident the and not allowed back in to accept his award (let alone make that speech).

How does it boost ratings when people didn't know it would happen?

Will Smith gets my vote for most whipped husband of the year.  He laughed at the joke initially, then got the stink eye and his attitude changed completely.  C'mon man.

That’s what I noticed too. He thought that the joke was funny before he got the evil eye from Mrs.
On a side note, masterfins, you might want to be careful with how you haphazardly  throw the word “stink” around here. You’ve been warned.

Wiil Smith is the most famous cuck out there and displayed the toxic masculinty people complain about because he is so insecure with his relationship with her.  

As far as the Oscars it is amazing to me he wasn't removed immediately. People are thrown out of comedy clubs and concerts all the time for heckling. The Oscars has tight security and yet no one felt they should remove a person who interupted the show and then committed violence on naional tv? The whole thing was f'ed up.

On top of it all the joke wasn't even bad but if it had been then it still doesn't excuse Smith or the lack of security surruonding it. Let me tell you if I start losing my hair, or even my wife, then our good freinds will be the first to bust our balls about it. If you can't laugh at yourself then you probably are dead inside.

I think that this is the point of all points.  Had he been removed, I think I can chalk this up to one person snapped and did a thing.  And then the normal consequences occurred.  And now, we can deal with the fallout of that person's atonement or whatever.

But the fact that the room full of people just sat there and the clapped for this guy 15 minutes later makes me feel like we're all complicit and this is a bigger deal than just one man crossing a line.

^^^^^ unfortunately Hollywood, and rich famous people in general, get away with many things the average person never could. As such they get crazier with each generation and think whatever their standards are is the "norm". They litteraly live in a different world of consequences.

I love Jason Whitlock. He wrote this about the whole thing. “No one should be rationalizing Will Smith’s behavior. We should be pleading for him to get mental and emotional help. Stripping Smith of his Oscar might shake him from some of the delusion created by living the past 35 years as a pampered and entitled celebrity.”  - Jason Whitlock

^ I don't think it's a rich people thing, specifically.

I heard a good take about this: We are at a place where social norms have not been enough to quell odd behavior.  Between people openly lying about things that are provable fact, to Jan 6th, to COVID and lockdowns -- there just aren't consequences for things that we assumed there would be.  People didn't storm the Capitol because you just don't do it -- it's hard to even imagine what life would look like if you did -- you just assume that you can't do that.  And then they did and it was kinda just like...nothing.  They just waltzed in and we all watched it happen.

I don't think we have a contingency plan, as a society, for how to deal with a millionaire slapping another millionaire in front of millions of households before accepting an award capping off the pinnacle of a storied career.  We don't have a playbook for that.  So, when it happened, we just did nothing and the lack of consequences has us fucked up.

I don't know who you are talking about or what exactly you mean by fucked up but I think too much thought and energy are going into it now. If any of the general public is fucked up by this I'd hate to know how they deal with real issues.

You conveniently left out things like Trump colluded with Russia to win in 2016 and might be a Russian agent, Trump and his peeing Russian prostitutes aka the Steele dossier,  the “Muslim ban” that wasn’t, Hunter Biden's lap did not exist, or even the current "Don't say gay" law which it isn't anything of the kind.

With that said I agree with you. Politically and societal no one is accountable. Each side has many who flip flop depending on their interest and while everyone sees it they pretend they do not. Add in the comments on every forum or  online thread and pretty much anythng can be said with no accountability.  There's no way that can't hurt society's morality or what little of it we still have.

Now the Academy has to deal with the fallout of this mess (partly their own making) and issue an appropriate punishment for Smith (which will drag out this saga further - but if they don't they will continue to be called spineless). Otherwise he may as well release a new aftershave called No Consequences with the advertising slogan "Just slap it on bitches!".

The bare minimum should be that Will and Jada are banned from next years Oscars, and fined at the very least the equivalent of their $150,000 "doggy bag" for attending (so at least $300,000). These folks receive that "gift" for attending, and if need be, smile and bear any joke that is made about them by the presenters, no matter how demeaning (as Kirsten Dunst did). As they decided they couldn't do that any more and made a public show of it, they can pay back what they received and piss off.

Why should Jada be banned?

I mean, I think Will Smith did get up and slap Chris Rock directly because of her reaction, which is itself likely a result of their problematic relationship and rocky marriage.  But ultimately, every person is responsible for their own actions.  Jada Pinkett Smith did nothing but roll her eyes, and maybe give her husband the stinkeye because he laughed.  She did not order a Code Red.

I've been kind of hesitant to weigh in on this here, partially because of fatigue from discussing it and partially because I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said.  I understand why Will did what he did; he badly misread how his wife would respond to a joke that directly hit a raw nerve, and once she saw him laughing, it was either Do Something Now or he's finding another house to sleep in for a while (maybe permanently).  That does not excuse his actions, which were completely wrong.

I am certainly grateful to Chris Rock for his professionalism and self-restraint.  He's a professional stand-up comedian - someone who has spent no small amount of time thinking of comebacks for hecklers who can't take a joke and want to escalate - and after all the family business that Jada has put in the street, that couple is the very definition of a target-rich environment; he could have went extremely hard on the mic, people jump out of their chairs, and the Oscars are marred with an ugly brawl between The Rapper That Doesn't Curse and The Comic With A Beloved Family Sitcom.

But he chose to fall on his sword, at no small cost of personal dignity (especially for a rich person), and this choice saved the black community from newspaper headlines across the country declaring "Thuggery At The Oscars!"  I hope Chris Rock got a thank you call from the Obamas.

Chris Rock had no choice but to fall on his sword. According to almost everyone who takes a position on th ok to use violence he had a free pass, he was attacked. Whether his response, or lack of (I haven't even watched a replay) was out of fear (Smith would cream him in a fight), immediate calculation of the situation,  personal philosophy,  or shock we don't know. But in any scenario he had no other choice that puts him on top.

Chris Rock definitely had a choice: he could have absolutely nuked Will Smith on the mic.  I'm sure something along the line of "He wasn't even that mad at the man who had sex with his wife!" immediately came to mind.  And it would be hard to blame him; that's a pretty measured response to being slapped in the face.  (I think it's worth noting again that one of the privileges associated with being a multimillionaire is that you aren't supposed to EVER be subjected to that kind of physical disrespect for the rest of your life, so it's fair to say that there are many other rich celebrities that would completely lose their shit, with no regard for any consequences, in his place.  When's the last time you saw a famous multimillionaire get slapped on camera and just take it?)

But taking the clapback course of action definitely would have resulted in people jumping out of their chairs, and Chris would have forever been known as the host that incited the only on-stage brawl in the history of the Academy Awards.  Furthermore, Chris has also made some other statements indicating that he has some awareness of the negative stereotypes of "urban culture," so he would know that such action would do a LOT to further that negative perception.

The Academy released a statement that they asked Smith to leave, but he refused.  ...not sure what to make of that -- you'd think that calling security is the next move there...

Honestly, I wasn't just using this as an opportunity to dunk on Trump.

I just meant that (like or dislike him) Trump has eroded away our norms.  He just lies, gets called out, and it doesn't matter.  I don't even mean big stuff, but like lying about the crowd size thing.  It's not a huge deal, because who cares, but it was just something we'd never seen before because we thought there'd be consequences for it and there just wasn't.

Similarly, I just assume that there are things in place if you happen to go slap someone during the Oscars.  ...and there just aren't.  You go back and sit in your seat and things continue.

I wasn't ready for that.

This I can agree on but from a different point of view.   The new definition of a woman is a biological man who can't compete in men's sports.   

Will had much different views prior to Jada messing his head up ...  :D :D


Now You Know by Will Smith

https://youtu.be/pU96c_3RXXU

If it's true that there's footage of her laughing the moment her husband bitch slapped Chris Rock, that alone would be enough.

No one knows for sure what was said, but something happened between Will laughing at the joke and Jada rolling her eyes, and then Will marching the stage to assault Rock. As far as I'm concerned they are a complete package to be dealt with, as I have my doubts Will would have done it if Jada wasn't there in person.

It's a little bit of a mute point - if Will is banned she isn't going to get an invite anyway. However, the Academy has to come up with a serious punishment given that they completely wimped out on the night after Will refused to leave after being asked to - otherwise they will continue to be called spineless, pathetic, and out of touch with reality.

Most of the people in the audience laughed when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.  That's a lot of bans!

I just don't think we should be punishing one person for the behavior of their spouse.  We are all accountable for our own actions; if Jada got up and slapped Chris, I would not think Will should be banned.

The key difference is that those in the audience who laughed thought it was all a set-up - they only got a clue it wasn't when Will started cursing at him after he went back to his seat...

Jada knew it wasn't a set-up. Even if she didn't provoke it, she sure as hell endorsed it.

I don't think you do anything to Jada.  It's all Will doing this.  She is allowed to be offended by the joke.  You just can't go physical -- that's the hard line.

Nothing said here for a while, so a brief update in case anyone did not know (I doubt it).

Will Smith resigned from the Academy, so he could not be banned for life.

Subsequently, the Academy has banned him for 10 years. He can still be nominated and be awarded in that time (unlikely), but he cannot attend, or vote, etc.

^ Sounds about right.  He can still be nominated, but I don't think him winning is something that anyone has to worry about.

He hadn't won until now anyway, plus, winning takes a good performance, a lot of support, but also marketing and stuff.  And it's not like there's one performance above everyone else, usually.  There's like 10 great ones to choose from.  There will be enough people who just don't want to have him involved that they'll vote elsewhere.

A bit of a different reaction today when someone charged the stage and attacked Dave Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl - security immediately reacted, dragging the offender backstage and beat the shit out of him (a badly broken arm and messed up face) before the Police arrived to make the arrest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd5He1E0J-U

Chris Rock went back on stage to check that Dave was ok, and then seized the moment to ask "Was that Will Smith?" on the microphone!

The Los Angeles DA is not charging him with a felony and the guy will be out with minimal if any bond. F'ing crazy. Who would of thought you could attack someone with a knife in front of thousands of witnesses and get off free?

(https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/05/05/20/57458703-10787125-image-a-24_1651777492318.jpg)


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10787125/Woke-Los-Angeles-DA-not-charge-Dave-Chappelles-attacker-felony.html

I guess they thought the beatdown security gave him is punishment enough.  You mess with the bull, you get the horns.

That's a good joke.

Is there any motive known or is this just a crazy person?

The family said they had a history of mental illness.  The person's social media shows they were a trans activist.

That sucks.  Gotta put that person in a jail/nuthouse.  ...can't be stabbing.