Will Smith clocks Chris Rock on stage

[Skeever]

If Mike Portnoy had gotten up on the Dream Theater stage and slapped James LaBrie or Mike Mangini, we'd be having a very different discussion.

[Harmony]

I think the bigger issue here is that the Academy Awards signed off on that joke, according to Ricky Gervais.  It's super easy to blame one guy for telling a bad or disrespectful joke when the power structure that is at play with the AMPAS allowed and encouraged it.  They also didn't ask a violent guest to leave the auditorium because they knew he was going to get his award and that would have looked bad for business.

Rock is lucky it was only a slap.  Had he been punched and fallen and hit his head, this situation could be 1000x worse right now.  And that easily could've been the case.  Even a minor head injury can be fatal.  Just ask Bob Saget's family.

FTR, according to Diddy the 2 men made up minutes after the incident back stage.  I have yet to hear anything from Jada who IMO is the one who's opinion truly matters.

[hefdaddy42]

It could only be a work if both of them had something to gain.

NO ONE gained anything.

Oh yes they did.  Jada's show is going to get a nice boost and Chris rock is getting a lot of love.  People are more likely to tune in next year. There is no such thing as bad publicity, EVERYONE is talking about that and that is a win even for Will Smith who came out looking the worst, but seemed to be having a great time afterwards.

That's not the kind of publicity that stars on WS or CR's level look for.  This is some third-rate Dancing With The Stars-level bullshit.

[Stadler]

I was on vacation last night and just saw this now. 

Haven't read the whole thread, but I support Will for doing it.  He alluded to it in his speech that actors are supposed to sit there and take it from a comedian/host at awards shows and laugh along, even if it hits a sore spot.  Good for him for taking a stand when he felt that it crossed a line.  Maybe it will take some of the more tawdry humor out of the awards season and bring it back to more respectful humor.

Come on.

That man said something I didn't like, so it's OK if I get up and hit him?  It wasn't even a malicious joke or comment.  It's not like Chris Rock called Jada a whore.

I just wrote about this not a week or so ago, though I'm blanking on the thread now; we've been moving in this direction for years now.  This is the "words have consequences!" extrapolation.  Hate speech - and this is NOT hate speech on any level - is protected speech.  Only words INTENDED to provoke imminent violence are not protected (and that Will Smith responded with violence doesn't make Rock's words wrong in the First Amendment sense of the word).   It's easy to point to consequences; "oh, call someone a fag or wop and you deserve to face the consequences!".   And I always ask, "who gets to decide what those consequences are?"   Will Smith did.  And in effect, Chris Rock did, too; let's face it, he presses charges, he's a pariah.  There was no choice there.   We're now at the stage where as long as there's an appropriate and politically correct level of offense, then words aren't sacred anymore.  Will Smith is just acting out our deepest fantasies, if we're being honest about it. 

[wolfking]

I was on vacation last night and just saw this now. 

Haven't read the whole thread, but I support Will for doing it.  He alluded to it in his speech that actors are supposed to sit there and take it from a comedian/host at awards shows and laugh along, even if it hits a sore spot.  Good for him for taking a stand when he felt that it crossed a line.  Maybe it will take some of the more tawdry humor out of the awards season and bring it back to more respectful humor.

Post less please.

[KevShmev]

A funny comment I saw was that Smith wouldn't have been so eager to do that had that been THE Rock and not Chris Rock. 

Honestly, while not surprised, to see so many online applauding Smith for his assault is really disheartening. 

[jammindude]

If Mike Portnoy had gotten up on the Dream Theater stage and slapped James LaBrie or Mike Mangini, we'd be having a very different discussion.

Not that he would ever….but if JLB made a crack about Marlene, from the stage, with both Mike and Marlene in attendance, Mike would most likely have done much more than a slap.

However, I do not advocate that course of action. I am of the firm opinion that that sort of behavior is completely inappropriate. There are other ways of dealing with this stuff.

[KevShmev]

Not that he would ever….but if JLB made a crack about Marlene, from the stage, with both Mike and Marlene in attendance, Mike would most likely have done much more than a slap.
 

Yep, he likely would have spat at James rather than attempted a slap. 

[Orbert]

I think the bigger issue here is that the Academy Awards signed off on that joke, according to Ricky Gervais.

I'm not a Ricky Gervais fan, but he's hosted the Oscars before, so he would know.  People forget that the hosts are essentially working from a script, a script that is approved by The Academy.  If Chris Rock had gone off-script and ad-libbed a hateful remark, then maybe he deserves some kind of shit for it.  But if all he did was read a joke that had been "approved" then maybe he's still wrong to go along with it, but he doesn't deserve for some asshole to walk up and hit him in the face.

[vtgrad]

Wow... perhaps it is work because everyone is talking about it.  Oscar this, Oscar that... I wouldn't have opened this thread if the title was Oscar (blank); I opened the thread because of the word "clocks".  That's the point I think, if it is staged.

If it's not work and Jada really did have a problem with it, so much so that Will had to go Men in Black on Chris Rock, then meet somewhere and duke it out privately.  Yell and scream at each other for 5 or 10 minutes and get it out.  In my opinion, a man should not put his hands on another man unless physically provoked by the other man; and even then not in front of cameras for goodness sake.  Meet the guy in the parking lot and see where it goes.  Live on TV for possibly hundreds to see, poor choice of timing.

Yelling is yelling and words are words; contact though, is another matter.  Chris might be a bit older, but it's not like didn't have the chance to try and take care of it physically.  What CR did do was smart in my estimation... he has jokes on top of jokes for the rest of his career because of this, and that likely occurred to him within milliseconds of being hit.  Popping WS in the throat and making him choke may have felt good in the moment, but I'd wager that CR quickly realized that he could mint this bitch slap for the rest of his career. 

[Grappler]

I was on vacation last night and just saw this now. 

Haven't read the whole thread, but I support Will for doing it.  He alluded to it in his speech that actors are supposed to sit there and take it from a comedian/host at awards shows and laugh along, even if it hits a sore spot.  Good for him for taking a stand when he felt that it crossed a line.  Maybe it will take some of the more tawdry humor out of the awards season and bring it back to more respectful humor.

Post less please.

No thank you, and I understand that I hold an unpopular opinion about this.  Yes, he could have opted to sit in his seat and take it.  Yes, there are non-violent solutions.  But I'm of the thought that these award shows have gone too far with certain types of jokes.  The Oscars are not the Golden Globes, where these jokes are expected and the atmosphere is looser, and even then, I don't agree with the absolute roasting of celebrities where the room becomes uncomfortable.  I don't remember Oscar hosts like Billy Crystal taking things that far back when I was a kid.  You can joke about a movie's box office performance, you can joke about the plot, but you don't just don't joke about someone's appearance. 

I think Will had a point in that it can be unfair to these actors that are expected to take a pounding time and time again from award show hosts.  And I have also seen my nephew deal with relentless bullying at his school.  My brother and sister in law took every single non-violent path they could - talk to the teacher, talk to the school principal, talk to their son and tell him to turn around and walk away, talk to the other parents.  Talk, talk talk.  But nobody listened.  Nobody did anything to stop the behavior.  You know what their final answer was to their son? 

Stand up for yourself.  If these people still torment you after we've tried so hard to talk out different solutions, then get physical with your bully and show him that you're not going to take it anymore. 

Now, I don't know Will Smith and Chris Rock's history, but I do see some of the tormenting that Smith's family has taken from the media and fans - about their unorthodox marriage, about their personal lives.  They talk about it plenty as well.  Maybe it was time for Will to take a stand - he just chose a moment when millions are watching to do it in the heat of the moment and when he was likely to be celebrated. 

Bottom line for me - take the nasty jokes out of the award shows and go back to celebrating these people, not expecting them to be subjected to ridicule because that's what viewers want.  Just because they're millionaires doesn't mean that they need to be the butt of every joke for our entertainment.

[wolfking]

Stand up for yourself, yes.  However Smith makes himself look like a total dick and there were better ways to stand up for himself and his wife without walking up and hitting the guy.  That's just fucking psycho. 

Condoning violence is just ridiculous.

[cramx3]

It could only be a work if both of them had something to gain.

NO ONE gained anything.

Oh yes they did.  Jada's show is going to get a nice boost and Chris rock is getting a lot of love.  People are more likely to tune in next year. There is no such thing as bad publicity, EVERYONE is talking about that and that is a win even for Will Smith who came out looking the worst, but seemed to be having a great time afterwards.

That's not the kind of publicity that stars on WS or CR's level look for.  This is some third-rate Dancing With The Stars-level bullshit.

It is some low level BS, but it is Hollywood.  As I mentioned in another post, I'm not going to die on this argument.  It can be completely real and I could be totally off base here.  My gut just tells me this is Hollywood being Hollywood though. 

[KevShmev]

Grappler, if the teachers were telling some students to bully particular students, then maybe your point would have made sense, but since the awards show hosts are merely repeating jokes that were likely written for them, a key element you conveniently ignored, your point lost all credibility.

Besides, these Hollywood nimrods know what they signed up for.  They go in knowing that jokes will be told at their expense.  Did Leo get all upset and punch Amy Schumer for her joke which clearly made fun of him always dating young females? Nope.

[Grappler]

So Chris Rock isn't at fault, because someone else wrote a joke for him to say that insulted someone?   Since when is that a defense?  "He said that I could do it!"  He chose to make the joke, whether he wrote it, or someone else did.  It was approved by all involved, which also says something about how these award shows are scripted.  That it's ok to say something mean and then hand them a trophy.  It's not being billed as a roast, where people are expected to be the butt of the joke, but that's what it's essentially become.

I dislike the way that these jokes have trended over the last 10-15 years, and I must not be the only one, given Will's actions.  Just because they were paid handsomely for their work and that "they know what they signed up for" doesn't make it right.  You can host an awards show without insulting the people that you are giving awards to, or their spouses.  My point stands - if you're going to make a joke, you poke fun at the films, not the people.  Maybe Leo can take a joke better than Will, but that doesn't mean that the overall way of telling jokes at these shows is acceptable.   

[Melphina]

Making a G.I. Jane joke about a bald woman is taking jokes too far? He wasn't vulgar, profane, inciting violence or hatred. It was a reference to a film with a bald woman as the lead. Jeeze Louise, the sensitivity.

[cramx3]

Even if it was approved, does that mean Chris Rock didn't even write the joke?  Or did they just approve of his joke.  I don't think the joke was too bad in the context of a stand up comedy show. I'm not familiar enough with an Oscars show to know if that was completely misplaced.  (kind of seems to be, but what do I know... they approved it though)

[lonestar]

Stand up for yourself, yes.  However Smith makes himself look like a total dick and there were better ways to stand up for himself and his wife without walking up and hitting the guy.  That's just fucking psycho. 

Condoning violence is just ridiculous.

Yep... Totally agree. The proper and mature way, while really slamming Rock, would've been for Smith to call him out for it in his acceptance speech.. "hey Chris, don't talk about my wife like that again or we gonna have problems" or something like that. Non violent, look like the protector, and not flush your career down the toilet.

[wolfking]

Stand up for yourself, yes.  However Smith makes himself look like a total dick and there were better ways to stand up for himself and his wife without walking up and hitting the guy.  That's just fucking psycho. 

Condoning violence is just ridiculous.

Yep... Totally agree. The proper and mature way, while really slamming Rock, would've been for Smith to call him out for it in his acceptance speech.. "hey Chris, don't talk about my wife like that again or we gonna have problems" or something like that. Non violent, look like the protector, and not flush your career down the toilet.

He would have come out the winner doing it that way for sure.

[bosk1]

So Chris Rock isn't at fault, because someone else wrote a joke for him to say that insulted someone?   Since when is that a defense?  "He said that I could do it!"  He chose to make the joke, whether he wrote it, or someone else did.  It was approved by all involved, which also says something about how these award shows are scripted.  That it's ok to say something mean and then hand them a trophy.  It's not being billed as a roast, where people are expected to be the butt of the joke, but that's what it's essentially become.

I dislike the way that these jokes have trended over the last 10-15 years, and I must not be the only one, given Will's actions.  Just because they were paid handsomely for their work and that "they know what they signed up for" doesn't make it right.  You can host an awards show without insulting the people that you are giving awards to, or their spouses.  My point stands - if you're going to make a joke, you poke fun at the films, not the people.  Maybe Leo can take a joke better than Will, but that doesn't mean that the overall way of telling jokes at these shows is acceptable.   

That has nothing to do with what anybody here is saying.  Whether Chris Rock was "at fault" or not isn't the issue.  The issue is whether Smith crossed the line in responding with violence.  And the only correct answer is yes.

As far as whether the "humor" has gone too far, I don't disagree with you.  But that is largely irrelevant to this situation.

[lonestar]

Stand up for yourself, yes.  However Smith makes himself look like a total dick and there were better ways to stand up for himself and his wife without walking up and hitting the guy.  That's just fucking psycho. 

Condoning violence is just ridiculous.

Yep... Totally agree. The proper and mature way, while really slamming Rock, would've been for Smith to call him out for it in his acceptance speech.. "hey Chris, don't talk about my wife like that again or we gonna have problems" or something like that. Non violent, look like the protector, and not flush your career down the toilet.

He would have come out the winner doing it that way for sure.

Yep, and it would've been emotionally mature... Which he obviously still struggles with.


Anyways... For this peasant, it's been totally worth it, haven't seen this high caliber a meme day since the Bernie mittens one.

[Grappler]

That has nothing to do with what anybody here is saying.  Whether Chris Rock was "at fault" or not isn't the issue.  The issue is whether Smith crossed the line in responding with violence.  And the only correct answer is yes.

As far as whether the "humor" has gone too far, I don't disagree with you.  But that is largely irrelevant to this situation.

Actually, the humor is 100% relevant.  Will even said so in his acceptance speech - see what I underlined below.  He's sick and tired of pretending that it's ok to be the butt of someone's joke. 

Now I know, to do what we do, you've got to be able to take abuse. You got to be able to have people talk crazy about you.  In this business, you've got to be able to have people disrespecting you, and you've got to smile and you've got to pretend like that's OK.

I agree with the other posters that he could have taken a better, more eloquent route.  He'd be the better man, for sure.  But I won't condemn him for saying "enough is enough."  I think it's great that someone finally hauled off on one of these hosts for the bullshit jokes.  I've made my points and I don't need to talk in circles, since I'm in the complete minority here, so I won't be responding further. 

[King Postwhore]

Then he should have had a sit down with Rock privately asking him to stop.  Not let it bubble up for 2 years when in your biggest moment, you crack.

[MinistroRaven]

Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.

I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness. 
 
I would also like to apologize to the Academy, the producers of the show, all the attendees and everyone watching around the world. I would like to apologize to the Williams Family and my King Richard Family. I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us.
 
I am a work in progress.

Sincerely,

Will

[lonestar]

Then he should have had a sit down with Rock privately asking him to stop.  Not let it bubble up for 2 years when in your biggest moment, you crack.

Seriously... I mean, without escalating the actual amount of violence dispensed, I can't think of a worse way he could've handled it.

[KevShmev]

Who knows if Smith wrote that apology or not, but saying the joke was about Jada's medical condition is misleading, as the joke was about her having no hair.  And if you think about it, the joke was not even hurtful since G.I. Jane was a bad ass (IIRC, as I have not see the film in a long time).  Ultimately, it is obvious that Smith only reacted the way he did because Jada didn't like it, as he laughed at the joke initially.

[lonestar]

It still just baffles me how he went from casually laughing at the joke to 'I need to smack the shit out of him in front of the biggest audience" in literally two seconds.

[jammindude]

Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.

I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness. 
 
I would also like to apologize to the Academy, the producers of the show, all the attendees and everyone watching around the world. I would like to apologize to the Williams Family and my King Richard Family. I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us.
 
I am a work in progress.

Sincerely,

Will

I was hoping for this.

We can speculate and nitpick til the cows come home. But at the end of the day, Will had to make decision. “Am I going to step up and apologize for my behavior, or double down on the defending my family angle.”

I don’t care if someone wrote it for him…in the end, once he signs off on it, it becomes his words.  He chose to apologize. So as far as I’m concerned, he did the right thing.

Maybe he should have been escorted out? Maybe not? Maybe he should have been charged? Maybe not?

But this is the end of it. The *media* will drag it on forever. But it actually ends here.

[jammindude]

It still just baffles me how he went from casually laughing at the joke to 'I need to smack the shit out of him in front of the biggest audience" in literally two seconds.

I explained this earlier, but I think it was totally natural given the situation. There’s a 2-3 second lag of reaction in real time. That’s the time it sometimes takes for the reality of something you weren’t expecting to set in. Happens all the time.

[lonestar]

It still just baffles me how he went from casually laughing at the joke to 'I need to smack the shit out of him in front of the biggest audience" in literally two seconds.

I explained this earlier, but I think it was totally natural given the situation. There’s a 2-3 second lag of reaction in real time. That’s the time it sometimes takes for the reality of something you weren’t expecting to set in. Happens all the time.

Different mindsets... Never in my adult life have I gotten so offended or protective that i got aggressive or physical, and I was not a stable person for most of those years. Violence is just not an option for me.

[jammindude]

It still just baffles me how he went from casually laughing at the joke to 'I need to smack the shit out of him in front of the biggest audience" in literally two seconds.

I explained this earlier, but I think it was totally natural given the situation. There’s a 2-3 second lag of reaction in real time. That’s the time it sometimes takes for the reality of something you weren’t expecting to set in. Happens all the time.

Different mindsets... Never in my adult life have I gotten so offended or protective that i got aggressive or physical, and I was not a stable person for most of those years. Violence is just not an option for me.

I wasn’t talking about him resorting to violence. On that we agree.  I thought you were speaking of the delayed reaction.

[KevShmev]

An interesting sidenote to this is the story Will Smith told a few months back about his father hitting his mother when he was 9 and him always regretting not doing anything about it.  He apparently referred to his dad as "daddy-o," which stood out to me because I remember the Fresh Prince episode when his real father came back, and then at the end of the episode when they were supposed to go away on a trip, his dad bailed on him with some lame excuse, and in the scene Will referred to him as "daddy-o" (he called him that when the dad was going to leave without telling him, as he tried to pawn it off on Uncle Phil to do, but Will entered the room before the dad could exit).  Not sure where I was going with that, but it made me wonder if the "daddy-o" line was in the original script or if Smith improvised that and called them as a callback to his real father who was also a massive disappointment.

[soupytwist]

You never hit someone in response to a joke. Good God.

Dunno about that.  Racism, Sexism, Homophobia etc isn't suddenly more tolerable if it has a punchline.  Lot of people hide behind 'I was only having a laugh', 'It's only banter'.

Not comparing what happened last night to that, just responding to your blanket statement.

[Melphina]

You never hit someone in response to a joke. Good God.

Dunno about that.  Racism, Sexism, Homophobia etc isn't suddenly more tolerable if it has a punchline.  Lot of people hide behind 'I was only having a laugh', 'It's only banter'.

Not comparing what happened last night to that, just responding to your blanket statement.

You don't assault someone over a joke. If someone brings racism into the mix it turns into something more than just telling an off color joke and that's when intent and context comes in. But as a principle, let me rephrase, no, I don't think you ever physically hit someone over a joke when a comedian is on stage doing his job. This is an awful precedent for the future. This just emboldens people who already think it's fine to start shit with comics on and off the stage.

And, honestly? Even if someone hides behind the joke defense, you still don't hit them. Be a bigger person.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I didn't read everything that happened here, so this may have been addressed, but Grappler, if he'd slapped Wanda Sykes for making this joke, you'd be cool with it then, right?