Getting Jiggy with the Ugliest Oscars

If you needed a reminder that Hollywood is bereft of morals, last night was a great reminder.

At a time when the world needs to come together more than any point in the past three decades, it was more divisive ugliness out of the Oscars awards show. In case the small audience tuning in needed to remember what they were getting into, the three female hosts of the show began the evening by insulting Floridians and repeating the word “gay” over and over. You see, when tackling a topic like when it is appropriate to teach gender fluidity and sexual orientation to small children, the best way to signal your morally superior position is to chant a word over and over and over. Whatever your thoughts on the Florida legislation, the tactic employed at the Oscars can’t be the best retort. It’s on par with playground chants on the teeter totter.

But the childishness did not stop there.

They’re calling it the “slap heard round the world”:

VIA JAPANESE TELEVISION: The uncensored exchange between Will Smith and Chris Rock pic.twitter.com/j0Z184ZyXa

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 28, 2022

As many have said, it would appear Will Smith can’t take a joke as well as Chris Rock can take a slap to the face. While some are defending Will Smith for “defending his wife’s honor,” the problem is that the rules for “honor” in Hollywood are hard to follow. In an open relationship like Will Smith and Jada Smith have, is it okay to use a joke of questionable judgement against Mrs. Smith? Is it honorable to have a marriage in which other sexual partners are discussed and bragged about in the media? I’m asking that not as a judgement against Mr. Smith or Mrs. Smith, but simply to notice that the rules here are confusing. And when a joke is made, what are the parameters that a comedian cannot pass nowadays. “Words are violence” is a phrase you hear a lot… so do words then mean that physical violence is appropriate? 

The issue is that segments of our society have blurred the lines of right and wrong such that the less scrupulous of us no longer no what they should or should not do.

Whatever level of class you think was employed by Chris Rock’s joke, there must have been far better ways for Will Smith to handle any sort of chivalry of offense he felt. Using the setting and the live television situation to strike an unsuspecting comedian probably isn’t of high virtue. And were it not for Chris Rock handling it in the way he did, this could have gone much worse. Think about what could have happened had Rock physically responded to the attack.

But it isn’t either Will Smith or Chris Rock who need to be ridiculed the most in this. Yes, Chris Rock made a joke that probably stung based on a medical condition, and yes, Will Smith “sucker slapped” someone on live television to protect his wife of an avant garde marital arrangement. However, had proper societal protocols been employed afterwards, none of this would be terribly big news beyond a one-day response and ridiculing Smith for years. Instead, because this is Hollywood, there is no compass to guide the arbiters of virtue in the way they should go. As a result, instead of Smith being dismissed from the event, he was later awarded a most prestigious award and then given the opportunity to defend his assault. In doing so, he apologized to people whom he did not offend… and failed to apologize to the man he physically assaulted. In doing so, he defended physical violence as a means of protecting others from soft quips. In doing so, he used religious terminology like “God,” “the light,” and “the devil” to position his slap as a key moment in defending women. The man he assaulted was given no such platform.

So let me get this right, the Oscars fired Kevin Hart for an old tweet but gave an award to a man who slapped a host of their own show. #thoughts #ILoveCats

— Jay D3PO (@Drunk3po) March 28, 2022

And the crowd of immorals rose to their feet and applauded. 

In a room such at that, where secrets of Harvey Weinstein are kept close to the chest, and award winners of the past have often been violent towards women, what else are they going to do? Unlike the rest of America, a better America, Hollywood actors have no idea how to rise to a moral moment. The few exceptions, such as the courageous Denzel Washington, had their words of wisdom sown upon ground where it cannot grow. In a recorded moment where Washington spoke to Smith about “the devil” in a way that meant you must control your passions (i.e. the devil within), Smith turned around and used the misunderstood metaphor to point towards Chris Rock as a vessel of “the devil”. A joke about GI Jane had wounded his wife such that Smith must strike another man — despite Smith never having struck men who have been intimate with his wife during their marriage. And so Denzel’s teaching that “the devil” waits for you at your highest moment was flipped into a defense of striking a man over a joke.

It is no wonder comedy is dying.

It is no wonder the Oscars are dying.

Perhaps now people will tune in just to see if real violence will break out. And perhaps that is what the Oscars needs to survive. But the allure of movie “stars” is quickly lost when average Americans already behave much, much better. Can it be any more symbolic than watching a tyrant, assaulting actor with an award for a movie that lost many millions of dollars speaking about “the light” and “God” while a crowd claps in unison having just seen him attack another human being? Thank you, Will Smith, for being the perfect symbol of what is wrong with Hollywood.

Oh wait, Alec Baldwin…

Am I right or am I off base? Let me know in the comments below. And, as always, keep checking out That Park Place, where we cover all the news that should be fun!