The Missed Opportunity Surrounding Will Smith’s Slap

Wow – it’s been a while! I’ve been mired in mental and emotional stuff lately, with so many ideas competing for space in my brain that I can’t seem to get any out. They’re all related and complex, and they keep getting tangled when I try to pull a thread. But the recent incident between Chris Rock and Will Smith is an unrelated stand-alone incident that stirred up a strong reaction for me, so it seems like a good place to get started again.

For anyone who hasn’t heard about the incident, here’s the synopsis. At this year’s Oscars, on live TV, Chris Rock made a joke towards Jada Pinkett Smith, referencing her close-cropped hair which is the result of a skin condition known as alopecia. The entire room erupted in laughter. Jada’s face however, showed that the remark had landed badly, and her husband, Will Smith, strode up to Chris Rock and slapped him across the face. He then returned to his seat and made a loud angry comment, “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth,” which he repeated twice, until Chris Rock said, “I’m going to, okay?”

To give Chris credit, he handled the incident amazingly well, keeping his composure and visibly restraining himself from making any further jokes about the incident. Apparently Will Smith was asked to leave the event, but declined, and shortly thereafter he won the Best Actor award for his role in King Richard. During his acceptance speech, he apologized to the crowd and the Academy, but noticeably not to Chris Rock, though he has since issued an apology to his colleague. He later resigned from the Academy and has since been banned from attending any Academy events for ten years.

The singular focus of this fallout concerns me.

I am not suggesting that slapping someone in the face is acceptable. I am not suggesting that violence is the answer to anything. However, I do feel like we’ve missed an opportunity. We have narrowed the incident to a single moment of physical altercation, removing all of the context around that unfortunate reaction. I feel like we’ve missed an opportunity for an important conversation around verbal assault, humour, and standing up for the underdog.

Let me start by saying that Will Smith should not have slapped Chris Rock in the face. I do not think he handled the situation well. But the fact we’ve overlooked is that he handled it. He took a stand and went to bat.

As a public school teacher, I have spent years teaching kids about the power of bystanders. About the pain that words can deliver. About the importance of standing up for someone who is being picked on and calling people out on inappropriate behaviour. Will Smith demonstrated the very values we are trying to instill in children. It was undeniably a clumsy and misguided attempt, but I feel he is being singled out as the only problem in this situation. No one is making space for him as the “upstanding” onlooker that he was or pointing fingers at Chris Rock who took aim at Jada in the first place.

Granted, it would have been more appropriate for Smith to have refrained from physical assault in the process of standing up for his wife. It would have been much more appropriate to stand up and explain why Chris Rock’s words were over the line, what the impact was on his wife, and how all those who laughed, including himself, were lining themselves up with the bully. But most of us do not have access to that level of composure in high stakes settings. Most of us don’t know what to do, which is often why we laugh, even when we feel the joke is not really funny. Too many of us ignore the discomfort of the victim and reward the bully with our laughter and attention. When we focus solely on Will Smith, what we are saying is that it was okay for Rock to take a cheap shot at Jada, with no regard for her feelings or the feelings of others who might be struggling with hair loss for any number of reasons.

Many actors and other public figures have been quick to condemn Will Smith’s actions.  Academy executives released a letter in response to the incident. In it, they write, “This was an opportunity for us to set an example for our guests, viewers and our Academy family around the world, and we fell short — unprepared for the unprecedented.”

What they failed to point out is that they were woefully unprepared to set a positive example more globally, namely around the expected. Chris Rock delivered an off-colour joke at someone’s expense, and that was considered acceptable, because it was expected. As a society we seem to have implicitly agreed that it is okay to make fun of someone’s medical condition, sexual orientation, mental health status etc, IF it’s delivered as part of a publicly sanctioned event.

Please note that if the same event occurred in my classroom, I would be expected to shut it down, explain to all involved why it was not funny, and attend to the victim of the joke to be sure that they were supported in processing what had just happened. How are children, or adults for that matter, supposed to understand the difference between that and what happened at the Oscars? Why is it okay for Chris Rock to make cruel, rude, and directed comments, but not for the rest of us?

Then, when someone did not sit back and take it, but instead stood up to defend his wife, he has been vilified and harshly punished, taking all of the blame for the incident on his shoulders alone. How many of us have wished after the fact that we had responded differently in the moment when we saw someone being mistreated? How many of us have wished that someone stood up to protect us in a moment of victimization? How many of us have been triggered by an event and responded in a way we later regretted?

Emmanuel Acho explains why it is even more understandable that Will Smith reacted as he did. He points out that, in his recent autobiography, Will Smith states that much of his life has been defined by guilt over his inability to protect his mother from verbal and physical assault at the hands of his father. Now, he finds himself in a heated, tense situation, where emotions are running high for all involved. Chris Rock makes a joke and he sees the pained look on his wife’s face and is overcome by an impulse to defend her. Acho maintains that the violent nature of Will’s response is inexcusable, but he demonstrates a compassionate understanding of the forces at play for Smith. I see little of that compassion or understanding in most of the reactions following this event. Very few people are taking this opportunity to talk about trauma responses, or the impact of domestic violence on children. No one seems to be asking why we don’t care about microaggressions and unkind humour, or talking about the courage it takes to walk around in the world with all kinds of visible and invisible differences.

I maintain that verbal aggression is often the precursor to physical violence, and that both are caused by a lack of empathy and compassion. How can we model compassion, take the opportunities that arise to talk openly about difficult topics, and choose the kind of society we want to build for our children?