The Slap

Colleen
6 min readMar 30, 2022

By now, you all know what went down at the Oscars on Sunday night. (And if you don’t, well, here you go.)

I’m not really one to comment on celebrities’ lives, lives that are so different from my own that they’re simply unimaginable to me. I don’t know them beyond what’s on online tabloids and social media, so I usually don’t feel like it’s my place to share my thoughts. After all, as the saying goes, opinions are like butts: Everyone has them, and they all stink.

But I suppose I’m making an exception today.

Like many, I watched this moment live and thought it was a bit the two funny guys had orchestrated. It certainly came across as something planned. But then I took to Twitter and found the uncensored clip aired in Australia, where I suppose profanity isn’t as big a deal as it is in the U.S. Will was mad. Chris looked stunned. This was not in the script.

An off-color joke isn’t unusual for a comedian, and Chris Rock is no exception. Anyone who’s ever been to a comedy club knows that it’s an environment in which boundaries don’t exist. And for a comedian, I suppose any venue — even the stage at the Academy Awards — can be a comedy club. While Will initially laughed, it was clear that his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, didn’t like the joke made at her expense. Within seconds, Will’s tone changed. He stormed the stage and assaulted Rock in front of, per the…

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