The expectation of amusement is ingrained to the extent that many viewers, as well as Oscar telecast lead producer Will Packer, shared Rock’s initial expectation. I suspect that Smith was, on a certain level, performing for Black America.” Was audience gratification more important to Smith, as McWhorter suggests, than the possibility of an adverse impact on his acting career?
#Roxane gay will smith was thinskinned professional#
According to John McWhorter, acting-assuming a guise to be watched by an audience-was precisely what Smith was doing: “Smith is a professional performer, of course, and it might be relevant that he slapped rather than punched Rock, with the intention, seemingly, of shock (and awe, even) rather than physical injury. It suggests that Rock expected to be amused, not assaulted, responding as if Smith were an actor playing a role. The remark positioned Smith in terms of the fictional King Richard role he played on screen, not as a real, present danger on stage.
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Seeming to exemplify Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, he reacted to Smith walking toward him by saying “oh oh Richard” before laughing.
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Rock did not feel threatened when Smith first approached him on stage. It is important for the national conversation about the incident to emphasize that words matter. I will argue that Smith’s committing verbal assault is as crucial as his inflicting physical assault. While the slap received all the attention, the verbal attack he endured has been all but ignored. Gay wrote, “During Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, that distinguished jurist endured all manner of insult, racism and misogyny from Republican senators asking ludicrous questions that were really opportunities for grandstanding.” Rock was subjected to verbal abuse too.
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To my mind, Roxane Gay’s abrupt shift from defending what she calls the “thin skin” right not to be the butt of a joke to discussing Republican senators’ inappropriate confirmation hearing onslaught against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson points to the crux of what Smith wrought. Rosie O’Donnell linked Smith to Trump in a March 28 tweet noting that both powerful men get away with breaking the law: “We watched him do it – then like the trump years – we don’t hold anyone accountable.” In a subsequent tweet, she called Smith’s actions “a sad display of toxic masculinity from a narcissistic madman.” Bill Maher observed that Chris Rock evoked Jackie Kennedy when he set a dignified example in response to a shocking circumstance. I wish to participate in the discussion from the point of view of a feminist scholar who is, in fact, a literary critic. The title of Smith’s movie, in which he plays the father of Venus and Serena Williams, evokes a Shakespearean monarch he rose from Fresh Prince to “King Richard.”- Maureen DowdĪfter Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at last week’s Academy Awards ceremony, following the comedian’s “GI Jane” joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith-who has experienced hair loss or alopecia-the national conversation was replete with commentators, including Maureen Dowd, suddenly becoming literary critics who opined on the deep meaning of the incident.
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I could only look at the Will Smith meltdown from the point of view of that earlier Will, because Shakespeare has so many characters who precipitate a steep and stunning downfall: Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Shylock.