What Do Will Smith, Emancipation, and Emotional Debt Have in Common?

I recently saw a movie that got some harsh reviews. Maybe you saw it too? It was Emancipation, starring Will Smith. I wonder if the critics would have been more generous with their praise had that movie been released before the world heard the infamous slap.

In the movie (based on a true story), Will Smith plays the role of Peter, a man who breaks free from his slave owners.

With his jailers in hot pursuit, Peter finds a Union army camp where he receives care for his wounds.

Someone at the camp notices that Peter got multiple lashings in the past because his back is full of scars. They alert a photographer who asks Peter if they can take a picture of his scarred back. Peter agrees.

The photographer shows the picture to the camp’s commanding officer, who asks to see Peter.

The officer is not impressed. He does not believe Peter will stand for the freedom he claims for his wife, children, and all the enslaved. He thinks Peter will run away the first chance he gets. Holding the picture in his hand, he says to Peter, “You know what I see here? Disobedience.”

Peter is undefeated. He looks the officer in the eye and replies, “They break the bones in my body more times than I can count. But they never, never break me.”

Even as a slave, Peter knew he was born free. That’s what makes him willing to fight for freedom. — Powerful!

That got me thinking.

Did Will Smith know he was free when he slapped Chris Rock?

While hosting the 2022 Academy Awards, Chris Rock directs a joke toward Will Smith’s wife.

The joke does not land well with her. She gets a pained look on her face.

Will notices his wife’s pain. Something snaps in him. He gets up, filled with rage. He charges toward the stage and slaps Chris Rock across the face before warning him to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth.

When asked to explain what made him give “The Slap,” Will said, “It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother. All of that bubbled up at that moment. That was a rage that had been bottled for a really long time.”

Rage is a cry for emancipation because we forgot we were born free.

In the movie Emancipation, as the Union Army is about to go into battle, an officer says, “We will fight for freedom. We will not wait for freedom to be handed to us.” Peter looks baffled by the words.

‘Why wait for freedom when I was born free?’ Peter seems to ponder.

What is your cry for emancipation?

In emotional debt, both sides feel powerless to meet their own needs.

Consider this. Slave owners believed they could not be free men without owning slaves. Their freedom required the enslavement of other human beings. Their shame about owning their humanity and the nurturing needs that come with that made them try to beat the freedom out of man. But let me ask you. Who is the real slave in that situation?

If we lose our humanity, don’t we become enslaved?

One of the things that stood out for me in the movie was that Peter understood that living free meant he asked for what he needed. That belief moved him to do all he could to live his freedom with humanity.

Peter kept growing as a human being instead of selling out. He had no desire for emotional debt and its shackles.

When Will Smith got up and slapped Chris Rock, that gesture was a cry for Will and the little boy within him to become a free man.

The little boy in Will felt powerless as he watched his father beat his mother. Will’s wife is also the mother of Will’s three children. Can you imagine what that little boy felt like when he saw the pained look on his wife’s face?

Let me be clear.

We started by asking what Will Smith had in common with the movie Emancipation and emotional debt. Think about it for a moment.

Peter had nothing. Will Smith appears to have everything.

Emotional debt had enslaved Will. He forgot that the boy within him was born free.

Peter, the slave, remembered the boy within. That made him unwavering in living free.

Will and Peter both had a deep desire to live free, which now brings me to ask you:

How do you know you are really free if you don’t look at your emotional debt and solve it?

P.S. If you saw the movie, I’d love to hear what you think about the correlation between Peter the slave and Will Smith, who thinks he is free.

P.P.S. I have a special report titled, Emotional Debt and Its Impact on Your Relational legacy. To get a copy, let me know.

Anne Beaulieu, inspiring the next generation of emotionally intelligent, strategic women through

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