Is Will Smith banned from the Oscars after “the slap”?

The last Academy Award Ceremony in 2022 showed us many valuable things! One of them was that not even winning an actual Oscar can save you from getting banned from the ceremony, Will Smith is the living proof of that. But we’ll talk about that deeply a little later! Rules are rules and if they get broken some consequences & punishments will inevitably fall all over us. 

Yet, a year after the famous slap, we’re still wondering about some things and we’ll share our thoughts with you.  Just to recap a little, Smith hitted Chris Rock after he did a very bad joke on his wife  Jada Pinkett Smith, who currently suffers from medical condition Alopecia. Of all matters to make fun of, Rock chose Jada’s condition, in reaction, Smith stood up and hit him in front of everyone.

Some minutes after Will Smith was recognized as the winner of Best Actor  category due to his role in the movie King Richard, making his night definitely sweet and sour. Yet, this prize was definitely not enough for the actor to avoid paying the consequences of publicly slapping the host of this so important event! Let’s talk about it, here’s all you need to know about that day.

The slap won’t leave 2022! 

How bad does a joke need to be in order to get a slap for it? Further than bad and even further than politically incorrect it needs to be violent! People will simply not laugh at a bad joke, but a violent one will definitely generate more of that and this is exactly what happened a year ago at the Oscars ceremony. Comedian Chris Rock did a very bad and unnecessary joke on Jada Pinkett and we’re still talking about it. 

That violent joke generated a violent slap that not only got viral but brought big consequences to Will Smith. However, one would think that after a big scandal like that, what both parties would ever wish for would be to let that situation get dissolved. On one hand Will Smith apologized to Rock through an Instagram post the next day, where he was recognized to have acted from his emotions.

On the other hand, Mr. comedian  decided to use this entire situation in his next Netflix special, which was by the way the first live transmission of its kind. “I’m going to try to do a show tonight without offending anybody. I’m going to try my best, because you never know who might get triggered,””People always say words hurt … anybody who says words hurt has never been punched in the face.”

These are just some of the words Chris Rock used in order to open his show at Baltimore. They say all publicity is good publicity, but maybe it’s time for us as a society to reconfigure that thought, because we definitely shouldn’t be given space for violence glorification. 

How Will Smith get banned from the Awards?

So  Chris Rock got a millionaire Netflix special after the slap, without showing any kind of concern towards his bad attitude against Jada’s condition. Meanwhile, Will Smith got banned from the Oscars Awards ceremony for ten years! Honestly, the academy has the right to choose whatever condition they believe is right, but it’s kind of unfair don’t you think? 

Physical violence might be a most graphic and evident one, yet, our words are the only thing we can truly own. There are ways to make humor without making fun of historically oppressed figures, Rock should know that! Let’s not forget that symbolic violence is a real struggle too, and that joke is never just a joke.