This was the moment in 1967 that pushed Hollywood forward. It was constructed, rehearsed, directed, enacted, and filmed and edited with added foley effects. I reedited the scene for my installation Osmundine(Orchid Slap).
This is the moment and behavior that sets Hollywood back 50 plus years, upending the joy of Questlove’s documentary feature win for revealing to a new generation, elided archival documentation of historic, live Black performances, filmed 3 years after the release of In The Heat of The Night.
One slap is acting, no matter how “realistic” we may want it to be, because it challenges decades of (mis)representation. The other slap is acting-out with actual violence, documented on a live telecast. Ironically--a minstrel show comedy-giant-razor-sized irony- is that this happened as we mourn the loss of awardee, Sidney Poitier (who delivered that blow to racism), significantly, during the first Oscar broadcast to be directed by a Black man, Will Packer.
(Plus, there’s Danny Glover winning a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and--you can’t script this, Samuel L. Jackson receiving an honorary Oscar.)
Conflating a joke made by a comedian about a performer of equal stature into an attack on people with alopecia is misdirection. Chris Rock, in my experience of his comedy, doesn’t punch down, but up and across. Jada Pinkett-Smith is a public figure and an actor who can defend herself. She’s at a show where comics make jokes about people who are in the same, rare, realm of fame that she occupies. Rock’s (ridiculously outdated-1997!) jibe doesn’t cast Pinkett-Smith as less beautiful, less rich, influential or chic, nor does he defame her as a Black woman. Despite the accolades, the Pinkett-Smith family are Hollywood royalty, not actual royalty and we cats may look at and make fun of the King (Richard) and Queen.
The Smith family are not sovereigns and the fact that Smith had the temerity to walk up on stage during a live, international broadcast and assault his Black colleague in front of Yes The Children!, the theater audience, TV and internet watchers, fans, fellow Academy members, actors and industry professionals and hopefuls is shocking and shameful.
I’m disappointed that the show went on.
Are the Oscars important? No. Are the Oscars important? Yes. Do they have meaning? Yes. Do they have meaning? No.
Maybe now, the show will go the way of the Golden Globes to be ensconced in memories and at the Academy Museum. We don’t need the show anymore, which originated as a roomful of self-congratulating studio moguls slapping each other on the back and giving each other awards in order to protect/promote their industry. The challenges of achieving equity in this arena of the representational, performing arts that acknowledges people of color as skilled artists and professionals, in front of and behind the scenes, was upstaged by Smith’s ugly, self-righteous and all too real need to bitch slap.