The people have spoken
70 per cent of JOE readers feel that Will Smith should be allowed to keep his Oscar after giving Chris Rock one hell of a slap.
During Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, moments before he collected his own shiny trophy for Best Actor, Smith, 53, slapped comedian Rock, 57, after he made an insensitive joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.
Rock had compared Pinkett Smith to “G.I Jane” due to her shaved head, itself a result of her ongoing battle with alopecia, a condition which causes a person’s hair to fall out. The comment earned Rock a whack from the I Am Legend star, leaving audiences across the world stunned, baffled and divided.
VIA JAPANESE TELEVISION: The uncensored exchange between Will Smith and Chris Rock pic.twitter.com/j0Z184ZyXa
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 28, 2022
We polled our readers on social media where we found that 70 per cent of you want Smith to keep his Best Actor award, which he won for starring in director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard.
“Well he said it in his speech playing the roll of Richard Williams… always defending and protecting his family and people at all costs. He was still in character!!” reads one comment on our Facebook post.
Another wrote: “Yes. Maybe Chris and other comedians will think twice about making fun of someone’s illness or disability.”
On Twitter, most people believe “Rock should of known better” and that Smith won the Oscar “for his craft.”
Yes! Heat of the moment, and rock should of known better, comic I know, but there is thousands of 1 liner jokes he could of said on that stage, but chose to joke about will's wife, and it was just a slap not a punch.
— ANT 🐦 (@Leichtskorpion) March 28, 2022
Other people doubled down on the belief that the whole thing was staged. “Im not having that wasn’t staged,” wrote one Twitter user, while another agreed with: “Should have been given an additional one tbh.”
However not everyone is sold, with one Facebook user writing:” Situation is way out of control, I feel sorry for Chris Rock and I was a big Will Smith fan. I believe he has let himself down big time there. Regardless of what was said, these comedians say these jokes.”
Absurd question, of course. Wins the Oscar for his craft. The joke went too far.
— 🏳️🌈🇺🇳The-Olas🇪🇺🏳️🌈 (@Olas76) March 28, 2022
“His big moment of winning this Oscar will forever be shadowed for this act, he was wanting to win the Oscar for so long, such a horrible act in this big event can’t be a good thing, we all know that,” another echoed.
While the world continues to debate the topic, The Academy has remained eerily silent since its initial response. They wrote: “The Academy does not condone violence of any form.
The Academy does not condone violence of any form.
Tonight we are delighted to celebrate our 94th Academy Awards winners, who deserve this moment of recognition from their peers and movie lovers around the world.
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 28, 2022
“Tonight we are delighted to celebrate our 94th Academy Awards winners, who deserve this moment of recognition from their peers and movie lovers around the world.”
Related links:
- Will Smith predicted that he would ‘choose chaos’ hours before Oscar slapping incident
- There was a Pulp Fiction reunion at the Oscars that hardly anyone noticed
- Will Smith may lose his Oscar for violating Academy’s code of conduct after slapping Chris Rock
