Will Smith vs. Chris Rock

[iacas]

I'm voting hard for Chris Rock here. He's a comedian. That's what they do.

Will Smith took things to another level entirely. Like five floors up.

[jmanbooyaa]

I don’t think it is really a comparison. Rock was there to entertain and celebrate the so called best of the best in film. Smith has no excuse for this actions. Childish behavior not being able to control your emotions. 

[saevel25]

I get it, but Will Smith should have never took it that far. 

[Denny Bang Bang]

I’ll go beyond “less wrong” and say Chris Rock was not in the wrong at all.  He’s a comedian, it was in jest, I truly don’t believe it was a personal attack.

The Smith’s (yes, both) have issues with their egos (granted, so does a lot of Hollywood).  I was already not much of a Will Smith fan, certainly not the best actor but was in some good movies (and a good show).  After this, I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to catch one of his movies in the the future.  That said, people F up, so I’m not trying to crucify or “cancel” him either.

[saevel25]

Just now, Denny Bang Bang said:

He’s a comedian, it was in jest, I truly don’t believe it was a personal attack.

Hard to say that for certain. Comedians can get away with a lot. They can hide a grudge behind their comedy. Still it is something we allow because they are comedians, but it doesn't make them good people or what they did was good. With out details about the situation, even if Chris Rock was making a bad jest at Mrs. Smith, no way he deserved to hit slapped. 

 

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Hard to say that for certain. Comedians can get away with a lot. They can hide a grudge behind their comedy. Still it is something we allow because they are comedians, but it doesn't make them good people or what they did was good. With out details about the situation, even if Chris Rock was making a bad jest at Mrs. Smith, no way he deserved to hit slapped. 

Nobody is saying he did a “good” thing but I don’t think he did a bad thing. Will was laughing initially.

[jmanbooyaa]

I watched the unedited version online. Didn’t watch live. I saw Smith laugh and wife roll eyes. Not sure what happened in between. The camera shows Rock and you hear him say uh oh and than Smith walks up and smacks him. Very strange and unprofessional what happened. 

[Denny Bang Bang]

23 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Hard to say that for certain. Comedians can get away with a lot. They can hide a grudge behind their comedy.

Sure, and we can’t know for sure because we are not CR.  But I don’t believe it was a personal attack.  Even if it was, it wasn’t bad.

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

Will was laughing initially.

Yea, Will was laughing at first.  Jada was clearly not happy with it.

[Vinsk]

Will Smith acted like a buffoon. I don’t think Rock’s joke was the best in that it’s joking about her alopecia rather than her just choosing to shave her head. But that didn’t warrant Smith to publicly assault Rock like that.

[TourSpoon]

Smith clearly was in the wrong. Now Hollywood has to pretend that this didn't happen, kind of like how the show just went on without any intervention from security.  To Rock's credit, he took it like a champ and kept on even with the "fresh prints" across his face. I wonder if this will make the Oscars ( or maybe rename them the "Slappies") relevant again as no one has really cared in years.  An industry that makes money on glamorizing violence while supporting social causes and canceling people will now get to wrestle with one of their elites acting out as people get pushed around outside the event if they get too close to the red carpet. 

[billchao]

1 hour ago, TourSpoon said:

I wonder if this will make the Oscars ( or maybe rename them the "Slappies") relevant again as no one has really cared in years.

I think it does the exact opposite, actually. It discredits them and the things they represent.

[p1n9183]

Putting myself in Will's place, i would definitively do nothing about it, I would just take it as a joke, have fun and move on. I know that my girlfriend would also take it as a joke and laugh about it, that's why is so important to don't take life so seriously and hang with people with the same vibe.

That said, if for some reason the comedian goes too far and keep making chokes on me or my girlfriends all night long, I would tell him politely but firmly to cut it off, and if he persist I would just get up and leave or talk to Mr Oscars to kick him out. Will did everything wrong here.  
  

[ChetlovesMer]

At first I thought it had to be a planned "bit". But I guess not.

Will Smith is totally in the wrong. He could not be more in the wrong. Came off like an A-hole in my opinion. Seriously, you assault somebody for making fun of your wife. With a joke, that you laughed at, by the way? 

Look back through the years of the Oscars, the host as always made fun of those in attendance. Remember the year Rosanna Barr got ripped to shreds? Or Clint Eastwood? Or making fun of the number of husbands Liz Taylor had? Or ripping on Sinatra for banging just about every woman with a pulse. Come to think of it, Sinatra may have thought that was a compliment. 

Who does Will Smith think he is, Marsellus Wallace? If somebody does something you don't like, you discuss it with them. You don't go hit them. That's how society works.

[TourSpoon]

38 minutes ago, billchao said:

I think it does the exact opposite, actually. It discredits them and the things they represent.

I can see that as well.  I know it doesn't really affect me, I never bought into the hype anyway. 

[RustUK]

25 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

At first I thought it had to be a planned "bit". But I guess not.

 

I thought the same, you can see Will laughing as he walked off the stage.  If it wasn't staged, I can't see him going from laughing at a joke to being that mad about it in 10 seconds.  It doesn't make sense.

But, he has apologised for it today, so I guess it was real.

[Bucki1968]

I think Will Smith's problem is Mrs. Smith.  I would have booted her long ago.

[imsys0042]

I was pretty shocked to wake up Monday morning and seeing this on the news.   What was really shocking is that Smith wasn't booted and even the after party footage shows him living it up with other people.   That was just so completely unacceptable that it's shocking he was still there to win an award a little bit later.

That said, I'm glad that he apologized to Rock today and hopefully this will be a one-off thing.  I read his apology and I think he said the right things and took accountability that he was completely wrong.

[GolfLug]

I can't stand CR. Never have. Someone needed to put an end to his shtick but not like this.    

I think the correct and classy thing for Will to do would have to protest from his chair. Stand up and tell (or yell) CR, that his joke was completely below the belt (it absoutley was.. shame on CR if he knew it was a condition Jada had). He would have accomplished the honorable thing for standing up for his wife and embarrass CR. 

Will S flipped the table on himself when he acted like a middle schooler. I am not buying this 'love makes one do crazy things'. There is a lot of unrelated secondary BS this is kicking up now. Like for example, the racist folks are high fiving each other. While I am not going to say that jerks are suddenly going to emboldened to take swings at Comedians, but they certainly will second guess what the new normal is. 

I also think WS wasn't genuinely upset at first, just realized that he was gonna be in the doghouse for laughing and then tried to correct it. I don't know how Will S can undo this one.