Our daily cultural advent calendar is entering its final phase with our highs and lows of 2022. Today: The infamous slap that damaged Will Smith’s reputation in Hollywood
you remember where you were the first time you saw Will Smith slap Chris Rock in the face at the Oscars?
I definitely do that.
I was on a trip to Rome with a couple of friends and had just woken up in my budget hostel. I grabbed my cell phone to mindlessly scroll through social media, and it was there right away.
At first, I was convinced it was fake. There is no way that Will Smith would behave so violently on live television right before he would win his first Oscar. As the friends I shared the dormitory with gradually woke up too, we watched the moment over and over again, found every possible angle and finally came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be real.
“His hand barely touched him. Actors, especially action actors like Will Smith, know how to hit the right way,” one of my friends, who studies theater acting, argued.
But as it turned out, it was very real.
The incident shook the entire world and sparked numerous conversations about race, violence, comedy, and masculinity.
And in times of chaos, you can always count on one thing — memes.
After the infamous slap in the face, Smith was shunned in much of the film industry and excluded from the Academy Awards for a decade.
After a few months of silence, he finally apologized to Rock and the comedian’s family in a nearly six-minute YouTube video.
“Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk,” Smith said.
More recently, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star made his first talk show appearance since the incident and described his actions as “a rage that had lasted a very long time.”
“It was a lot of things. It was the little boy who watched his father beat up his mother. All of that just bubbled up in that moment,” the actor said on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
But Smith wasn’t just there to clean the air, but also to promote his new film Emancipation from the Era of Slavery, which tells the story of Peter, a slave who tries to escape from a plantation in Louisiana.
Inevitably, the film, which was shot months before the Oscar incident, was interpreted as a transparent attempt to revive Smith’s career and erase the bruise that the slap left on his reputation.
Smith, however, hopes that audiences will look beyond his actions and recognize the hard work and dedication of the film’s production team.
“I hope that their work is recognized and that their work isn’t affected by a terrible decision on my part,” he told Trevor Noah.
As for the future, the actor reportedly has a number of projects in the pipeline, but whether or not he can revive his career remains a hot topic in Hollywood. And whether it’s forgiven and forgotten or whether his reputation is irreparably tarnished, this unexpected outbreak was one of the most important cultural topics of conversation this year — for better or for worse.
Our daily cultural advent calendar is entering its final phase with our highs and lows of 2022. Today: The infamous slap that damaged Will Smith’s reputation in Hollywood
you remember where you were the first time you saw Will Smith slap Chris Rock in the face at the Oscars?
I definitely do that.
I was on a trip to Rome with a couple of friends and had just woken up in my budget hostel. I grabbed my cell phone to mindlessly scroll through social media, and it was there right away.
At first, I was convinced it was fake. There is no way that Will Smith would behave so violently on live television right before he would win his first Oscar. As the friends I shared the dormitory with gradually woke up too, we watched the moment over and over again, found every possible angle and finally came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be real.
“His hand barely touched him. Actors, especially action actors like Will Smith, know how to hit the right way,” one of my friends, who studies theater acting, argued.
But as it turned out, it was very real.
The incident shook the entire world and sparked numerous conversations about race, violence, comedy, and masculinity.
And in times of chaos, you can always count on one thing — memes.
After the infamous slap in the face, Smith was shunned in much of the film industry and excluded from the Academy Awards for a decade.
After a few months of silence, he finally apologized to Rock and the comedian’s family in a nearly six-minute YouTube video.
“Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk,” Smith said.
More recently, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star made his first talk show appearance since the incident and described his actions as “a rage that had lasted a very long time.”
“It was a lot of things. It was the little boy who watched his father beat up his mother. All of that just bubbled up in that moment,” the actor said on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
But Smith wasn’t just there to clean the air, but also to promote his new film Emancipation from the Era of Slavery, which tells the story of Peter, a slave who tries to escape from a plantation in Louisiana.
Inevitably, the film, which was shot months before the Oscar incident, was interpreted as a transparent attempt to revive Smith’s career and erase the bruise that the slap left on his reputation.
Smith, however, hopes that audiences will look beyond his actions and recognize the hard work and dedication of the film’s production team.
“I hope that their work is recognized and that their work isn’t affected by a terrible decision on my part,” he told Trevor Noah.
As for the future, the actor reportedly has a number of projects in the pipeline, but whether or not he can revive his career remains a hot topic in Hollywood. And whether it’s forgiven and forgotten or whether his reputation is irreparably tarnished, this unexpected outbreak was one of the most important cultural topics of conversation this year — for better or for worse.