We don’t need another sorry-not-sorry apology from Hollywood.
See Will Smith’s apology statement on Variety.
In the immediate aftermath of watching the 2022 Oscars crumble, I tweeted a special nod to the last time we saw such an appalling disruption to an award’s show.
In the moment I admit the glee one feels recognizing a notable historical event happening in real time.
However, through the evening and next morning, I learned a good deal about the strange marriage of Will and Jada Smith, her “entanglements” and the public humiliation he has suffered in choosing to reconcile with his wife in their marriage. That helps explain why he became unhinged and severely overreacted.
Is “G.I. Jane 2” funny?
Given the violent outburst it supposedly elicited, and the predictable association in the aftermath, it’s worth examining what Chris Rock said. And before we can dissect the joke, we need the proper form of analysis in both the artistic expression and the venue in which it’s shared.
The best comedy is quite nuanced on multiple levels, playing into connections most people miss. The best comedians push themselves to the very edge of public speaking.
We need stand up comics because they exhibit courage and humor in a lost and hurting world. They dance along the precipice where the rest of us dare not tread lest we face humiliation, lost reputation and livelihood. Such is the genius of the comedic art form, and why comedic mastery is revered as something bold and brilliant when it works, weak and pathetic when it fails.
Chris Rock is among the elite comedians. He is routinely named near the top of “best comedians of all time” lists. He came of age through the trailblazing shadows of Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy to break into broader entertainment. Jerry Seinfeld does an excellent job uncovering the unique dynamic of actors vs comedians, as well as the particular struggle of black comedians in his series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Objectively, Chris’s popularity and success merit more than a dismissive swat of the hand. The guy is widely deemed funny. And where humor is a mark of wisdom, it’s worth noting what he has to say.
With the G.I. Jane joke, Chris is making several connections.
First he knows Jada personally having worked together on the wildly popular Madagascar franchise. Presumably, he thought he knew her well enough to play into the social taboo of commenting on a woman’s hair. Though he miscalculated her response to ribbing, his comments are offered in both a personal and professional context.
Chris is also working the premier entertainment award show with a long history of self-deprecation and public roasting. It is through public vulnerability that this type of humor overcomes an obvious wall between celebrities and their fans. For a moment fans are brought into the inner circle with a wink-wink / nudge-nudge level of familiarity they would otherwise never enjoy.
The G.I. Jane reference is difficult to pull off because to truly appreciate it, one must know not only the original film, but the story behind Demi Moore. Like Jada, her marriage to Bruce Willis faced public ridicule through her own entanglements with a young man, Ashton Kusther. In both cases, the couples embraced the fluidity of their sexual relationships publicly with a sense of defiance.
Demi also chose to shave her head for the G.I. Jane role. So too did Jada choose to shave her head and speak publicly about her decision, albeit for a different reason.
Still, in both cases, the act of famous women shaving their heads were seen as bold and strong. At the time, Demi made a notable mark of individualism and diversity early in Third Wave Feminism. Likewise, Jada might be seen as a hallmark of Fourth Wave Feminism celebrating intersectionality, and the rejection of women as objects of sexual gratification. Knowing she is embracing a medical condition as a stand against the perception of beauty, I imagine a second take on the G.I. Jane script might have been well received by audiences.
I don’t want to give Chris too much credit overthinking a line. Neither do I want to mitigate whatever pain he causes as a professed insult comment. Instead, I want to slow down rhetoric and recognize that when Chris offered an unscripted throwaway line in the moment, his comedic genius is on full display, and why he’s a great host for these award shows. He is able to make connections so incredibly fast, before anyone has a chance to appreciate his depth and charism.
Did Chris’s joke fall flat? It’s hard to say. In the moment, the audience laughed. So did Will, until he caught the glaring disapproval of his wife. I’ve heard it said the best jokes are the ones that fail, and I tend to agree.
Regardless of his intent, the joke clearly stung Jada in the moment. Chris immediately started to backpedal, but it was too late.
Will’s reaction cut deep for the public.
Truly, a remarkable moment in time, we see the pain of many people projected in what Will did next.
- We see the pain of people suffering the humiliation of medical conditions they cannot easily hide.
- We see the pain of cultural sensitivity around women’s hair as a traditional sign of beauty for its distinction and the time it takes to cultivate, during a period of social haziness as we collectively question masculinity and femininity.
- We see the pain of infidelity as the details of Will and Jada’s marriage become public, and her role as a predator is seen by those devastated by traumatic betrayal.
- We see the pain of whataboutism in racial commentary.
- We see the pain of reactive violence.
- We see the pain of lost chivalry as a cultural value.
- We see the pain of celebrity narcism and stolen valor. With the award show’s declining popularity and subsequent spread of #theslap via social media, Questlove’s win for Best Feature Documentary will forever be lost to Trivia Night pub crawls.
- We see the pain of our inability to collectively discern truth. Convinced the slap was staged in a pathetic bid to re-capture audiences, we can anticipate rampant skepticism that’ll block dialogue. This is not a reasonable conclusion considering this is not the kind of attention the Academy wants. Indeed we see the pain of Academy members outraged by the lack of security, the lack of venue ejection, the follow-through award, and the hand-wringing of sanctions days after it happened.
- We see the pain of a divided upper and lower class. In what Bari Weiss has coined “The Great Unraveling“, we see institutional loss of power, exasperated by technology, where rules that apply to thee, do not apply to me.
My sense is these pains didn’t come from Will’s slap. Indeed, the audience laughed presuming it an improvisational pratfall. Even Chris laughed when he said “Wow! Will Smith just slapped the shit out of me!” Imagine if Will never said a word, never expressed his indignation. We’d have a different perspective entirely.
The pain we all feel comes from his rage.
Will’s very words are of ancient biblical proportion. From the Book of Genesis, God spoke and the entire world formed. He gave man the power to name the creatures of the earth. When Will demands that Chris not say his wife’s name, he is acknowledging the power of the spoken word. He is precisely correct. We know this because in an instant Will silenced an entire theater with tens of millions of viewers watching live by his words.
The Anatomy of a Proper Apology
Whether it’s a parent teaching their child, or a CEO accepting responsibility of their brand, there are key elements of a true apology.
- Recognition that the action is objectively wrong.
- Admission of harm caused without mitigation.
- Admission of guilt without shifting blame.
- Expression of remorse and sincere regret.
- A promise of penance and to do better next time.
- A request for forgiveness, without expectation of receiving it, after the other conditions are met.
Did Will’s apology meet this standard? Unfortunately, no. He mitigates harm, shifts blame away from himself under the guise of a loving reaction, and draws into question his remorse.
Will wants to be excused for his emotional reaction.
At a base level, I agree. We ought not judge people’s character by their worst moments in the throes of passion.
Reactions to extreme stimulus should not define us because they cut deep to our core in milliseconds. Reactions are formed in our psychological personality developed from childhood, shaped through our upbringing and codified in our biology. Even for the wisest stoic sage, reactions to extreme pain is incredibly difficult to control.
Will needs to own his reaction fully, and promise to examine what is hurting himself so badly that he’d over-react. “I’m sorry, but…” apologies just don’t fly among mature well-grounded adults.
Note the difference in reactions between Chris and Will.
Chris immediately backpedaled when he saw Jada’s reaction. He exhibited a healthy sense of shame for having done something wrong, even if he couldn’t articulate it in the moment. His immediate reaction was to try and make it right with words of reassurance.
Will laughed, looked at Jada, then confronted Chris. He stood up, marched into the limelight with tunnel vision, without any common sense or concern for how unacceptable he is behaving. He raised his hand, slapped a smaller submissive man whose eyers were closed, chin exposed and hands behind his back. Will then walked back to his seat and made a vile statement on public television not once, but twice that shocked every voice in the theater into silence, and sent network sensors scrambling.
The differences in their reactions is rooted in temperament and perspective. We know anger masks fears and insecurities. In that moment, Jada and Will were overcome by their own feelings of humiliation, without any consideration for lighthearted positive intent. They broke the social contract they hold with their fans, too haughty to laugh at themselves as beloved members of a bigger human family, as people who suffer the difficulties of life like the rest of us. Blinded by their own malice, all they could see in the moment was an affront to their dignity, a threat to their status.
Will should apologize for his narcissistic hubris. He has forsaken any gratitude for the privilege he enjoys from wealth and fame. He should apologize for surrounding himself with sycophants who are clearly enabling him to project his disillusionment. He should apologize for expecting the poor and marginalize to understand his plight, let alone accept his bad example.
Will is blame shifting from Jada and himself to Chris.
Will is not the victim here. Neither is Jada a martyr.
Will fails to acknowledge his own hubris that’s permitted him to physically assault others. He does not own culpability with his underlying contempt, nor can one reasonably expect he’ll change.
Will seems to not appreciate stand up comedy as as art, arguably a form more courageous and sophisticated than the thespian’s. The comedian lives by his wit and survives alone without the safety net of a retake and supporting cast.
Reconciliation comes from though humble contrition!
We don’t know Will’s heart, we can only judge by his behavior. What seems apparent from the video is that Will’s immediate reaction to the joke was laughter. His violent reaction followed Jada’s glare.
Anyone that has suffered deep feelings of betrayal, especially among those with whom we are most vulnerable, will recognize moments of lost control, childish impatience and the demand for outcomes beyond our ability to affect them. It’s reasonable to believe Will is fed up with the grotesque mocking of him, his wife and their children in popular music and videos.
I see the trauma of a broken man, who for a moment lost his well-groomed persona mask, unintentionally exposing himself to the world. His is a recurring nightmare we’ve all experienced.
Will’s stammering acceptance speech exhibits hallmark symptoms of PTSD. He struggled to articulate himself, the impossible task of reconciling his person and his persona. We recognize the agony of grief, a never-ending fall from the greatest night of his professional career to lowest point of confronting himself in front of the whole world.
It is common for people suffering from PTSD to feel like they’re experiencing an outer-body experience. I’d wager Will felt this way. Unless he’s an a priori narcissist, he’s probably reeling from witnessing his own behavior that, to him, seems so out of character from the person sees himself to be, and the person he aims to project.
That slap has been winding up for years. It cannot be adequately addressed by a corporate apology released to the press.
Feature image is Emerging Man (1952) by Gordon Parks in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Inspired by Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man about an African-American man living in solitude underground, invisible to society. The image evokes a sense of emotional isolation, the loneliness and fear of reconciling our person and persona.