Will Smith Smacking Chris Rock: Emotional Hijack Evoked by Unmindfulness
While Will Smith’s reaction was impulsive and revealed Smith’s sloppy emotional side in the ‘Will Smith punched Chris Rock at the Academy’ issue. The equally troubling side to the whole thing was ‘Who passed the script for the Oscars 2022 event?’ Can COVID-19, which came like a deadly storm, be rib-tickling in any way? How can you qualify Jada-Pinkett Smith’s Alopecia condition as a subject to be mocked at? This is harassment disguised in the so-called “It was all in good humor and that it is the job of comedians to poke fun”.
The 94th Academy awards concluded on Sunday, March 27, 2022. The event would be remembered more for provocation, nasty banter, and emotional hijack than for stakeholders winning awards for their phenomenal contribution to the film industry.
Out of many misses over hits, the one that stood out was Will Smith slapping Chris Rock after the latter joked about his wife Jada-Pinkett Smith. Will Smith grabbed his first Oscar for best actor for his film King Richard the same night.
Smith is into headlines for smacking the comedian Chris Rock since Oscar night. Chris, who came to present the best documentary award with his usual comedy, targeted Jada’s shaved head and compared her to Demi Moore’s character in the 1997 film G.I. Jane. Demi shaved her head to fit in the character. Referring to Demi’s character in the film, Chris pointed out Jada as perfect for the lead role in G.I. Jane 2.
“Jada, I love you. ‘G.I. Jane II,’ can’t wait to see it," said Chris. Smith reacted to this by heading onto the stage and slapping Chris. As Smith took his seat, he shouted out loud “Don’t take my wife’s name out of your f*****g mouth” twice to Chris.
Smith apologized to the Academy later in the evening as he came to collect his award. He even took to his Instagram account to apologize to Chris, calling out his act of slapping Chris “unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are 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.”
Smith’s behavior was impulsive, reactionary, and one that marked his loss of self-control. Punching someone in the face in the heat of the moment is unacceptable. Will was overwhelmed by emotions and wasn’t thinking at all. He was in the grip of emotions and acted in an unreasonable way, succumbing to his impulses. Smith could certainly have dealt with the matter more reasonably, probably by calling the attention of the Academy to the issue after the event.
However, Chris Rock’s jibe at Will’s wife was illogical, unempathetic, and disrespectful in the first place. Will smacking Chris doesn’t rule out the lack of mindfulness on the part of the team responsible for conducting the event.
How can Academy allow presenters and hosts to use a script that is fraught with unpleasant jokes? Yes, I’m also referring to the COVID-19 jokes that Regina Hall, one of the hosts, cracked to tickle the audiences’ funny bones.
The advocates of ‘one should take such things in good humor’ must know what forms part of good humor. Poking fun at someone’s medical condition is in no way funny. And nor is a deadly pandemic like COVID-19 a subject of humor.
While people have been debating over Chris vs Smith — Who do you support, the 2022 Oscars bring to the forefront some of the pressing human psychology challenges that we are facing today.
I. Our Sloppy Emotional Brain Leading to Unreasonable Behavior
Smith experienced what is called emotional hijacking or Amygdala hijack. We have two brains — one is the limbic brain, the oldest brain responsible for emotions. The other is the neocortex or the thinking brain which developed eventually and is responsible for the higher-order reasoning in humans.
Emotional hijacking is a state in which emotions take over our thinking abilities. This is a situation in which our reasoning side becomes a slave to the emotional side and prevents us from applying reason and logic in the given situation. As a result, we simply react instead of taking the time and responding to the given situation. We do not think what the consequences of our behavior would be. We simply act, much like Smith who was intimidated by emotions.
Once we come out of the grip of the emotion, we regret impassioned reactions. Now, you may wonder why does this happens? Despite having thinking abilities, why do we behave impulsively? It is because of the neural hijacking that takes place in the Amygdala, the almond-shaped part of the limbic brain which is called the watchdog of emotions.
Our emotional repertoire was extremely helpful to us in the early days as it was responsible for our survival. Fear helped our ancestors in times of danger because an attack by predators forced them to make quick decisions. Waiting for long could mean the end of life. Thus, fear helped us spot danger, triggering the adrenaline rush and putting us in fight or flight mode. The hormonal rush produced energy, prompting us to either fight the predator or run away from the situation in order to defend ourselves.
However, with the physical threat decreasing with time, this emotional repertoire is outdated to deal with the modern-day challenges. This triggering of the hormonal rush in current times makes us behave unreasonably, much like what happened to Smith. We smack, panic and feel anxious, and pull triggers.
Whenever we spot danger, the information reaches our brain for processing. The majority of this information takes a shorter route that leads to Amygdala. A small portion of the information takes the longer route, to the neocortex where the processing of information takes place.
While the thinking brain is still taking time to do the high-end analysis, the limbic or the emotional brain is ready with an answer already. One of the main characteristics of the emotional brain is that it provides quicker answers, but they are sloppy in nature. Thus, in moments of danger, the amygdala triggers the alarm and activates the autonomic nervous system. Accordingly, it employs the thinking brain, which holds back from functioning and does what the emotional brain says. And when under this emotional hijacking, we get angry, punch and slap, and get panic attacks.
As Smith rightly said in his public apology, “ I am a work in progress.” We all are dear Smith. I too panic many times, lose my temper, do unreasonable things I later regret. The only thing that can save us is realizing how imperfectly we function and practicing to think first and act later.
II. Lack of Mindfulness and Empathy Despite Being Species with Higher-Order Thinking Abilities
Chris Rock and the team approving his dialogue showcase how conscious we are of things we do and say. Despite having higher-order reasoning abilities, we tend to commit errors and do things unconsciously.
Was it that hard to question whether poking fun at Jada’s medical condition would be demeaning over being funny? How can people with higher-order reasoning abilities make fun of something so difficult for the other person to accept and live with?
This also shows the increasing lack of empathy in us humans. For once, we should all put ourselves into Jada’s shoes and think from her perspective. What if we were in place of Jada? Accepting that you have been diagnosed with Alopecia where you would be losing hair in patches is not easy. Accepting yourself with your head shaved is not easy. Accepting and living with it for the rest of your life is not easy. How can we find humor in something so painful?
Are we just saying and doing things for our own sake and benefit? For if there was empathy, such piercing remarks wouldn’t have been made in the first place.
This in no way justifies Smith’s altercation with Chris at the 2022 Oscars. However, this certainly compels us to think as a society “Do we at times cross the lines to an extent that we hit someone’s breaking point?” “Is there no threshold for each of us with regards to saying, doing, or behaving in the name of the right to speech and expression?”
All of us are flawed and no matter how much we try, we cannot completely get rid of the biases and the quick but sloppy emotional side to us. But, if we all understand how we are made and function, we would hesitate from hitting someone’s breaking point. If hitting is violence, so is allowing an unpleasant remark in the name of banter or good humor.
If Arthur Fleck was at fault for conducting mass killings in Gotham City, so were the rich and mighty who suppressed, abused, and took advantage of him in the 2019 film Joker. And was Andy’s breaking point not being hit by the warden and his right hand that compelled him to break the rules and escape from the Shawshank Prison in the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption.
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Thanks for reading, and hopefully, this was helpful!
