The Quest to Ruin Will Smith

Will Smith made headlines earlier this year at the Academy Awards when he walked on stage and slapped the comedian, Chris Rock, who told a joke about his wife's hair. Jada Pinkett-Smith, has alopecia, a disease that disproportionately affects women of African descent. Walking onto the Academy Awards stage and slapping a comedian for a joke is indefensible. It is especially bad that it was done by an entertainment industry veteran like Smith. Smith should have had better control over his emotions. With that said, after the incident, Smith has sincerely and publicly apologized to the comedian, condemned his behavior, and been handed a curiously draconian ban, which prevents him from attending the Academy Awards ceremony for a whole decade. However, there are still some people who are insisting that they are going to boycott his movies going forward, including his latest movie, Emancipation. This is simply reflective of how many people wish to aggressively punish rich black celebrities for the slightest mistakes.

As wrong as Will Smith was for his reaction, Chris Rock, the producer of the documentary Good Hair, which focuses on the pivotal nature of hair within the black community, had to know that mocking Jada Pinkett-Smith's hair in front of a majority white audience was an insult that crosses the line of acceptable black behavior. It is utterly inconceivable that he did not have a clue about the degrading nature of that joke. In fact, Sheila Bridges, an alopecia sufferer who was interviewed in the aforementioned documentary expressed disappointment with the comedian’s joke. Despite this, Chris Rock did not deserve to be assaulted, and Will Smith does not deserve to have his entire life defined by the unfortunate incident.

It is often said that no person should have their entire life defined by a single terrible action. Trevor Noah while interviewing Will Smith on The Daily Show said something to this effect. In reality, some people do deserve to be defined by the one thing that they did that was terrible. For instance, a mass murderer who walks into a church and kills congregants deserves to be defined by that one incident, regardless of whether he spent his life prior to that one event saving drowning puppies. However, Will Smith’s slap at the Oscars does not deserve to be the event that defines his entire existence, especially considering the questionable activities and gross behaviors that Hollywood mostly ignores. Western entertainment is rife with the most reprehensible roués who are rarely punished and publicly shamed for their serial abominations. Roman Polanski and Woody Allen exist if the media are so desperately looking for actors to make into symbols of hate because of their behavior.

Despite the existence of actual deviants and criminals throughout Western entertainment, it is Will Smith’s act of indiscretion that, to some, is most deserving of moral opprobrium and must be talked about ad nauseum. During a CNN segment, Chloe Melas, an entertainment reporter, said that “there are still so many unanswered questions on it...we still don’t have much more information.” She also went on to say, “so he says that’s not who he wants to be nor what he wants his legacy to be remembered for...but he still doesn’t explain exactly why...what caused him to rush the stage...”

That Melas and her ilk are feigning the need for “more information” to understand that someone made a joke about a man’s wife and he acted angrily in the heat of the moment is telling. They do not actually need more information. Evidently, Smith even engaging in amateur psychoanalysis of how his past trauma at home may have led to the incident was not enough. Providing details of how his nephew reacted to the infamous slap was also not enough information. Such people are just trying to ensure that his entire identity is defined by the incident. Where are these inquisitive entertainment reporters when it is time to interrogate the precise reasoning for why vile deviants in Hollywood engage in their grotesque behaviors?

Rich black people in Hollywood, and in the entertainment industry more broadly, are rarely given the same level of grace that others are. It is why some are earnestly trying to make Will Smith’s slap something that erases his entire lifetime of work and well-known magnanimity. That there are black people who are rich and talented enough to make public mistakes and not be permanently ruined by those moments of indiscretion deeply irks some people. This is the driving force behind the ridiculous insistence of some that Smith ought to spend the rest of his days explaining what caused him to slap a comedian on stage, as if it requires a deep academic analysis to fully understand.

Will Smith behaved poorly. It would be one thing to boycott his movies if he was recalcitrantly remorseless for his behavior at the Academy Awards, but acting as though his numerous public apologies are somehow insufficient to atone for his behavior on that night, especially after receiving a ten-year ban from attending the event, is preposterously punitive and shamefully graceless. Will Smith should make his appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah the very last time he mentions the incident in public. People claiming to be in the dark about what happened are trying to hoodwink him into making the slap central to his identity. He has accomplished too much in his career to allow that to happen. No apology nor explanation will ever be enough for these people. Will Smith slapped a guy who made a joke about his wife. There is no further explanation needed. He is not a mass murderer. It is time to leave him alone.