Will Smith punches Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars.

[CheeseMuffin]

I think I speak for us all when I ask WTF just happened?

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/27/will-smith-punch-chris-rock-wife-joke-gi-jane-video-oscars

@TabithaTittlemouse

Oh god the snowflakes are out in force

Not a snowflake @Eyedropeyeflop, a survivor of domestic abuse who is angry that this violence is ok because it’s on stage at a glitzy ceremony. Why is it okay to joke about will smith hitting someone? Would you joke about my xh hitting me? What if I had made a shit joke, would I deserve it then?

It's never okay to say that someone's words caused someone else's violent assault, and I'm really sorry you've had to go through what you have. Please take no notice of violence and abuse apologists. You didn't deserve the abuse and Chris Rock didn't deserve to be assaulted. I do wonder about the agenda of those claiming he was 'asking for it' and how safe their loved ones are around them if they genuinely believe the awful nonsense they come out with.

It's interesting people insisting that Jada Pinkett-Smith isn't traumatised by the affect of alopecia, when she herself has stated it has.

Yes she shaves her head right down and owns it, but it is a very big deal for her and I can see completely why she would find it traumatising.

Choosing to shave your head as a style statement is completely different to doing it to manage a condition which is causing your hair to fall out. She has no choice.

Making fun of her was not on.

Will Smiths reaction was not right, he looked like he was drunk and Chris Rock did deserve a slap. Worse he wouldn't shut up even after seeing Jada's face and being smacked by WS.

Should WS have ended up in a police cell for it, in a country where black men have a very high mortality rate in police custody. Definitely not.

@risefromyourgrave

I wonder if Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett Smith are/were friends, they both did voiceovers in the Madagascar series, and while they wouldn’t necessarily have ‘worked’ together on the film, what with it being an animation, they would have done press junkets together surely?

I suspected it went quite a bit deeper than the public details we know about.

@VampireMoney

He didn’t just say something that WS didn’t like though did he? It was a personal attack (A joke which really wasn’t a joke).

Saying something that people don’t like is different to personally goading somebody and there is a fine line which you are approaching in a very black and white manner.

Like I said he didn’t just state some random opinion that WS didn’t like…… it was personal.

If you believe that every male who has a physical altercation with another male is instantly a wife beater you are very black and white, at best misinformed.

Will Smith was a twat. Roll your eyes, go on your show, Youtube channel, write an article etc (and the World is truely their oyster for amplifying their voice out with the opportunities they have) about how you didn't like that joke or about alopecia.
I have alopecia, yeah it sucks but you cant go around slapping people for a joke about it.

Re Will Smith laughing at the joke, it looked to me like he was a bit slow on the uptake, and didn't really get it. At first, anyway.

Look, most of you would be grossed out by someone not famous who was near 50 having an affair with their son or daughter's friend aged 18 Don't say you wouldn't be.

Sure, but what's it got to do with an altercation relating to a comic taking a swipe at her hair loss?

You're saying it's actually all about their open relationship and that Jada can't possibly be hurt by jokes about her hair loss?

didn't read the thread, but might be worth mentioning that in addition to this particular episode of Chris making fun of Jada, there were at least two other public instances. 1) tweeting about Jada's "other boyfriends", 2) another televised joke around Jada not being invited to the Oscars. there must be a backstory there...

On another note, I do find American stand up shows really bad taste. It is sometimes up there with bullying really...They are most often built on making fun of other people, whereas British humour is more about making fun of life and oneself in general.

Lots of misogyny going on here. The joke - which was dreadful. The actions of Will Smith violent and worrying. Two arseholes making themselves look like even bigger arseholes.

If I am attacked with words - for my appearance or anything, I don;t need a man to decide I need defending with violence. As an intelligent adult, I am completely capable of defending myself, with my own words. In a dignified and sensible manner. I don't need some misguided alpha male shit going on and making the situation worse.

Jada is an adult, she can make her own decision about how to react if and when she wants to and she can choose how she reacts. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have chosen to hit someone.

All Will Smith has done (apart from damage his own public image and career) is make the discussion not about whether it is acceptable to make fun of someone for a medical condition, but about whether it is OK to hit someone. The actual important topic has been subjugated, because whenever you respond with violence, you put yourself in the wrong.

If you have got to the age of 50+ with all the benefits of publicity training that go with being in the public eye, and you can;t seen that you respond to verbal attack with a verbal response or you don;t dignify stupidity with any kind of response, then there is little hope for you.

The whole thing makes me sick - women as objects to be joked about as if they weren't there, to be fought over by men (who are really only fighting for their own egotistical reasons for wanting to be seen as an 'alpha male' who 'doesn't take any shit') as if they are incapable of deciding for themselves about how to react to a situation that directly affects them. We aren't children, we don't need men to say someone needs a slap on our behalf.

The pictures of WS at the after party leave a bitter taste.

Jada needs to LTB

@gazprom

comedy roasts are a US institution that date back to the fifties, where a celebrity guest of honour gamely endures a series of hugely personal attacks from comics and showbiz colleagues. It has a storied and pervasive cultural history in America - particularly at awards ceremonies and public dinners.

The concept is about placing the great and the good (ie people of high social capital, as in you are not mocking poor people, or disadvantaged) in a boundaried setting and taking them down a peg or two, or twenty. Mocking them mercilessly for anything and everything. And the people subject to it know others will get it. It's a game, where a jester type takes the 0.00001% of privileged people and rips them to shreds. Try Anthony Jeselnik if you want to see truly brutal roasting (his Trump one is funny - Trump is hating every second of it)

Then this stops the minute the event is over.

It's such a well known tradition that there have been many anti-roasts, the late Norm Macdonald's one of the late Bod Saget being the best antiroast

It's not really translated well in Britain.

It is supposed to be insulting, supposed to be 'below the belt' and no-holds barred and the Oscars took the genre and spruced up its rather dull and staid format by hiring comics to do roasts a number of years ago.

You may not agree that it helped the Oscars but every celeb knows what a roast is, their people will know, it's about tearing them down in a certain setting. Anyone celeb loses sight of this has their head up their arse.

Now, would a comic or an ex-Scientologist be more or less likely to have their head up their arse

To properly’Roast’ would be to take the piss out of something they have done. Not out of a medical condition that they have no control over. What he said is not ‘roasting’ someone, he was being cruel.

Should WS have ended up in a police cell for it, in a country where black men have a very high mortality rate in police custody. Definitely not.

What?! WS shouldn't have been arrested because he is black? I've read it all now.

Soemone upthread said that they would expect their husband to slap someone if the person "disrespected" them in public. If someone was rude to me, in front of me, in public, they would find themselves dealing with me, not my husband. If my husband hopped in and hit someone because they were rude to me, and then claimed to have been "protecting" me, he would be the one needing to defend himself. From me.

@texasschmexas

didn't read the thread, but might be worth mentioning that in addition to this particular episode of Chris making fun of Jada, there were at least two other public instances. 1) tweeting about Jada's "other boyfriends", 2) another televised joke around Jada not being invited to the Oscars. there must be a backstory there...

On another note, I do find American stand up shows really bad taste. It is sometimes up there with bullying really...They are most often built on making fun of other people, whereas British humour is more about making fun of life and oneself in general.

Yes , there is a history of CR criticising Jada Smith. He made ‘jokes’ about her not attending the 2016 Oscars. This may be why she was offended by his joke about her hair.

@drsaibatsu
Not entirely, but I think WS is paranoid about perceived sniggering about their relationship and responded to a mild trigger in a HUGE way

I can't say how sensitive about their she is, despite wearing her look beautifully and being beautiful and mega rich and successful and saying she loved it a few days back she might be sensitive.

But come on, she's at a traditional awards show (to give a flavour of what Donald Trump had with his Comedy Central one "Donald, I'm not sure if you're even aware of this, but the only difference between you and Michael Douglas from the movie, Wall Street, is that no one's going to be sad when you get cancer") where the standard roasting happens to a range of people

He then choses this lame 'joke' - not evensure it was really joke?) to punch him? Really?

Jada was humiliated twice last night. These 2 grown men are pathetic creeps.

Has anyone seen Ricky Gervais at these award ceremonies. His roasts are severe

@Eyedropeyeflop

He deserved the slap. It was not a joke. In the same way some banter clearly isn’t “banter”. My husband would have done the same but then I know he fiercely loves me and would never have me disrespected like that in public.

People always come up against it going around acting like that and sometimes you trigger someone who you would never think would be capable of violence.

He might think twice next time. I hope Will doesn’t feel too upset by the whole thing.

Will Smith laughed at the joke. I wouldn't have laughed at it, but he did.

He assaulted Chris rock after he saw how upset Jada looked but he laughed at the joke before that.

Again, I wouldn't have. But HE did, which makes the whole thing even crazier as it has an added layer of hypocrisy.

Will Smith laughed at the joke. I wouldn't have laughed at it, but he did.

He assaulted Chris rock after he saw how upset Jada looked but he laughed at the joke before that.

Again, I wouldn't have. But HE did, which makes the whole thing even crazier as it has an added layer of hypocrisy.

I think Will will have been in a world of shit from Jada for laughing at it initially and then the assault. He found it funny at first.

gazprom
comedy roasts are a US institution that date back to the fifties, where a celebrity guest of honour gamely endures a series of hugely personal attacks from comics and showbiz colleagues. It has a storied and pervasive cultural history in America - particularly at awards ceremonies and public dinners.

The concept is about placing the great and the good (ie people of high social capital, as in you are not mocking poor people, or disadvantaged) in a boundaried setting and taking them down a peg or two, or twenty. Mocking them mercilessly for anything and everything. And the people subject to it know others will get it. It's a game, where a jester type takes the 0.00001% of privileged people and rips them to shreds. Try Anthony Jeselnik if you want to see truly brutal roasting (his Trump one is funny - Trump is hating every second of it)

Then this stops the minute the event is over.

It's such a well known tradition that there have been many anti-roasts, the late Norm Macdonald's one of the late Bod Saget being the best antiroast

It's not really translated well in Britain.

It is supposed to be insulting, supposed to be 'below the belt' and no-holds barred and the Oscars took the genre and spruced up its rather dull and staid format by hiring comics to do roasts a number of years ago.

You may not agree that it helped the Oscars but every celeb knows what a roast is, their people will know, it's about tearing them down in a certain setting. Anyone celeb loses sight of this has their head up their arse.

Now, would a comic or an ex-Scientologist be more or less likely to have their head up their arse

*

a) the person being made fun of here is not the celebrity but his wife.

b) making fun of a person's disability, with millions watching, when that person has previously publicly stated that they are struggling with it, is not ok.

not supporting the reaction by the way. But Chris' so-called joke is completely tasteless and has the markings of an arsehole. Cant imagine he increased his popularity tbh...

Sorry if this has been asked/answered, but is there any footage of Jada's reaction?

I would like to know why he hasn't yet been arrested.

It would have been interesting to have seen Jada’s face when Will was shouting after the incident.

Perhaps that’s why he was crying later?!

Chris deserved it. Taking the piss out of a medical condition is vile.