What did the five fingers say to Chris Rock’s face?

[La_Tigre]

Guessing we have all seen it and heard about the Oscars. Let’s get the discussion going. 

Have lost all respect for Will Smith (as well as the Oscars) at this point..

Can you imagine Richard Pryor or Dave Chapelle instead of Chris Rock? Will Smith’s hypocrisy?…would’ve been verbally disemboweled.

[...]

Poor example of a human behaviour, no idea what Chris Rock is planning on doing but the evidence would be self-explanatory in court.

Rock is a better person than I, his recovery was solid considering the situation.

[NSXCIGAR]

It did not look like he actually hit him and he didn't react like he was hit. Looked like a stage punch to me. I thought it was a bit until I guess it wasn't. 

Very weird, especially since Will's first reaction to the joke was a pretty hearty laugh. Going to be tough explaining that...

[Bijan]

I was very confused at first as I did not watch the Oscars.

Video:

https://youtu.be/myjEoDypUD8

 

[dominattorney]

I figured it was a joke too at first. Like changing friends of Habanos name....  guess not? 1 for 1, here's hoping. 

[Meesterjojo]

He probably shouldn't have roasted the dude's wife. Especially about something so sensitive for a woman as hair loss. 

[El Presidente]

I have never watched an Oscars/Toni or Barfa

....today was no different 

[Vortigan]

19 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

I have never watched an Oscars/Toni or Barfa

....today was no different 

No, me neither. I stand to be entirely corrected but my bet is on this being nothing more than a piece of sensationalist theatre attempting to garner attention for what's been a failing institution (in terms of viewership) for some time.

[Ryan]

Every news source is reporting this. It's the story of the Oscars. I've heard and seen at least 5 different tellings of the story. None of them have commented about what Jada Pinkett-Smith herself thinks about all this. Did she want that reaction from her husband over that joke? Did she feel she needed that kind of "protection"? 

Having said that, I am seeing the word "thug" used far more often towards Will Smith than it would be towards Kevin Costner or Tom Hanks had they done the slapping.

[SCgarman]

Go ahead and insult my wife, I'll give you a good whoopin' also. Looked like the real deal to me

[Fuzz]

Smith was laughing at the joke at first. Jada probably said something, and off he storms. Lost whatever little respect I had for him, especially after his lame apology.

[ElJavi76]

As a man he did “the right thing”, defending his wife. But there’s waaaaaay more context here than that. I could’ve sworn those two had broken up years ago, but I stand corrected. As @La_Tigre pointed out, I think Will Smith took advantage of the fact that the guy on stage was Chris Rock. Pooky is still pooky and the guy probably weighs 135 pounds. If the comedian up there was Dave Chappelle there’s like no shot Will does the same thing cause he knows Dave’s a little more street than Chris. So I don’t know about thug, but he came off like a bully to me. Additionally, Rock is a comedian… comedians roast the audience at these events. The fd up part is that this could’ve been a writer’s material and not necessarily Rock’s personal punchline. In which case is Will gonna hunt the writer of the joke down and smack him/her too? The reason I pointed out earlier that I thought Smith and Pinkett were divorced was her public infidelity. Not attacking her on this, as our gender is way more propense to this kind of activity. However, it was quite public that during one of their breakups or however they wanted to frame it… Jada had an “affair” with this August Alsina character. He definitely looks healthier than Chris Rock and I never got around to hearing any stories about Will smacking that dude. To flip the coin for a moment… I guess we can congratulate Rock for turning the other cheek so to speak. But how many of us would take 5 to the face like that from a dude and keep chuckling?
 

Hollywood is a cesspool of humanity so I don’t think Smith will ever get canceled, but like many others here I’m down on the dude. Lost a lot of respect for him, and a little for Chris Rock. Never stay hit Pooky! (For context, Rock played a crack head nicknamed Pooky in the movie New Jack City sometime in the early 90s.)

[BrightonCorgi]

Oscars are desperate for viewers & publicity.  I don't think it was genuine.  As fake as everyone attending and accepting awards.

[Bijan]

Apparently Regina Hall (some actress I guess), made a joke about will smith and his wife earlier. Wonder what the reaction would have been if Smith had slapped and yelled at her?

🤔

[rcarlson]

17 minutes ago, ElJavi76 said:

The reason I pointed out earlier that I thought Smith and Pinkett were divorced was her public infidelity. Not attacking her on this, as our gender is way more propense to this kind of activity. However, it was quite public that during one of their breakups or however they wanted to frame it… Jada had an “affair” with this August Alsina character.

Au contraire.  I've got it from a reliable source (law partner that handles domestic relations) that cheating goes both ways about equally.  However, men are more likely to have discrete sexual encounters (one-offs) whereas women tend towards the intimate relationship.  And women tend to be better at hiding their extra-marital relationships and less willing to admit to them than men when confronted.  According to my reliable source, the polling/questionnaires showing a greater propensity in men to cheat can't be trusted. 

With that said, why'd the whole thing look so staged?       

[Bijan]

22 minutes ago, rcarlson said:

With that said, why'd the whole thing look so staged?

Things like this usually seem staged.

And I mean it more generally not just physical altercations. Any time someone does something unexpected in a very public event/ceremony it seems staged. These are very scripted/timed events so even random things feel like they're part of the script.

[BrightonCorgi]

11 minutes ago, Bijan said:

Things like this usually seem staged.

And I mean it more generally not just physical altercations. Any time someone does something unexpected in a very public event/ceremony it seems staged. These are very scripted/timed events so even random things feel like they're part of the script.

Chris Rock would've been in a more defensive position if this was not staged.

[helix]

A new low.

[riderpride]

Will always had too big of an ego. Just another small man with a big bank account now. 

Should have been escorted from the building for that display 

Cheers

[Chibearsv]

Of the myriad of thoughts I have on this:

Oscars have a history of jokes in poor taste.  It's always been taken as a "roast" so Will's reaction sucks.  All he had to do was sincerely tell Chris, "Dude, that's really poor taste based on what my wife has gone through and you should apologize immediately."  Then if Chris refuses, have at it.

I don't think Chris Rock has ever been in a scrap.  Anyone that has, knows the body language of Will's strut to the stage and should've be ready to defend or deflect.

Would Will have done the same to Billy Crystal if he had delivered the same bad joke.  If no, does that make Will a racist?

Will's acting during his "apology" acceptance speech should have been reason to take the trophy back from him.  What a bunch of crap. 

[Corylax18]

Truly Bizarre. The Crowd certainly seemed to think it was staged, laughing along, until Will got back to his seat and started screaming like a crazy person. 

There are also plenty of screenshots showing Will laughing at the joke, while Jada is CLEARY not impressed. Was the joke in poor taste? Yeah, but not to the level of forcing a physical altercation. The whole Jada/August Alsina relationship is bizarre as well. The guy lived with the Smiths AFTER the affair came to light, how progressive. 

Regardless of weather it was staged or not, the Oscars/Academy/whatever must be LOVING it. A bunch of crusty sods that haven't watched or talked about the Oscars in decades, if ever, are now talking about it. No publicity is bad publicity. 

 

[coug28]

1 hour ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Chris Rock would've been in a more defensive position if this was not staged.

Fairly certain he had no idea a grown man, nominated for an Oscar…was going to slap him in the face lol. 
 

Zero chance this was staged IMO. Embarrassing for Will Smith. Did fairly well in his recovery with his acceptance speech, but could’ve been better than it was (apologizing to Chris Rock too, shortened up the defender of the family angle and not went on a on etc). In the end, Williams family may have loved him in the role of the ‘King Richard’, certain they didn’t love the distraction Will took from honoring their father and their film/story last night. 

[Fuzz]

The whole point of having comediennes host the show and present segments, is to roast the celebs and provide entertainment. You can't take a roasting, then you really do need to be taken down a few notches off your ego trip.

That lame poorly acted apology is his PR rep trying to do damage control.

[ElJavi76]

 

18 minutes ago, rcarlson said:

Au contraire.  I've got it from a reliable source (law partner that handles domestic relations) that cheating goes both ways about equally.  However, men are more likely to have discrete sexual encounters (one-offs) whereas women tend towards the intimate relationship.  And women tend to be better at hiding their extra-marital relationships and less willing to admit to them than men when confronted. 

Well it’s been said that women are better cheaters than men. They do a lot of things better than us. 

[...]

1 hour ago, ElJavi76 said:

 

Well it’s been said that women are better cheaters than men. They do a lot of things better than us. 

Representative statistics usually trump our personal perceptions. It's possible some x do better y than some z but the overall picture is always more interesting, at least to me, when discussing group-representative behaviours... It may however be acknowledged that we all have our own, personal or heard, anectdotes on relationship issues once we have lived a little; the overall representativeness of these anectdotes may be debatable. I guess I'd be in the camp of 'let's wait and see' 😂

In the Smith/Pinkett situation, cheating could be a misrepresentation of the context as their relationship allegedly allowed for additional partners.

Bravado aside, at least under most circumstances, violence seems (objectively) to be a sub-optimal strategy in improving the outcome of anything; I would agree that it may be an intuitive reaction to having one's feelings hurt, mostly based on the human brain's limitation in handling stress and confusion, but I'd wager it doesn't qualify as a moral (or efficient/smart) strategy... I'm open to additional data on the subject though 😇