It was a freaking, jarring sight, but showed how unchecked emotions can cloud judgment and get the better of brains. In this case a brief 'GI Jane' riff by Chris Rock about Jada Pinkett Smith, triggering the lizard brain of 'Best Actor' winner Will Smith. Though he initially smiled at the joke he could see wife Jada was not smiling, so he launched onto the stage and slapped Rock - then unleashing an F-bomb:
"Keep your fucking mouth offa my wife!"
All at once the Academy Awards briefly came to a stunning halt last night as the earlier light -hearted mood at the Dolby Theater changed. My psychology post doc niece, Shayl, has the most logical explanation for Smith's wild act: displaced rage. He was actually enraged at himself for initially laughing at the joke - then realized wife Jada was not amused. Instantly, he flew into a rage - at himself- but displaced the target by swatting Chris Rock. Sounds to me like a plausible hypothesis.
Smith, in his own Oscar spiel in the next hour, showed clearly how the film ('King Richard') had gotten inside his head and emotions. Smith cried throughout his speech, in which he apologized to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and his fellow nominees for the disruption, but never apologized to Rock. (For his part, Rock joked backstage after the ceremony: "I just got punched in the face by Muhammad Ali and didn’t get a scratch.”)
As for Smith, after being handed his Oscar he then went on to babble:
“I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams,”
Smith said, possibly trying to lighten the mood of the still shocked audience. “But love will make you do crazy things.”
Actually, the lizard brain will make you do more crazy things. Just ask all those tens of millions of Reepo Goobers who have sucked up the Big Lie bunkum, and the 58 percent of citizens who really believe Biden is doing a "terrible" job. (More on this in another post).
The Academy took pains to point out that the moment was not planned, said a person close to the Oscars production who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly. Smith, who played Richard Williams (the father of tennis prodigies Venus and Serena) in the biopic “King Richard,” appeared onstage about 40 minutes later to accept his prize for best actor.
All week long a series of articles, mainly in the LA Times, had noted how ABC - which televises the awards - had not been happy about the low ratings last year (only 10.4 m viewers) and wanted greater emphasis on more popular films. This as opposed to the more obscure, 'indie' type niche films that virtually no one - in the general public at least - sees, or is even aware of. The Academy had the chance to set that aright last night but blew it, awarding the "Best Picture" Oscar to a film 'CODA' about deaf people, that virtually no one in our circle (and I am sure others) ever heard of.
While a "heartwarming" film, as the LA Times described it, this movie did not merit the 'Best Picture'. Anymore than 'Hurt Locker' merited the award over 'Avatar' some 12 years earlier, e.g.'
For perspective, by the time the final award was announced, 'DUNE' had already grabbed six Oscars, including: Sound, Cinematography, Visual Effects, Original Music Score, Film Editing and Production Design. And I had already written a post last year how it had been the first film to actually entice us to go back to the movies- in an actual theater, e.g.
In addition, DUNE grossed the most ($400m) of any of the nominees, and ranked 11th overall in Box office pull from all the past year's films. In other words, it was clearly a film of quality that was also highly popular. It was the perfect candidate to set the Oscars back on the track to higher ratings, as opposed to a quirky indie tilt- even more pronounced this year because CODA was a streamed entity (from Apple) and not a major studio effort.
The Academy, in its rarefied, isolated perch may realize that it has blown it again and paved the way for even worse ratings next year.
Though, true, the Will Smith running off the rails incident this Oscars may well lure eyeballs of the morbidly curious next time around - making viewers wonder which star will pop off next!
See Also:
The slap heard around the world: Will Smith really did hit Chris Rock at the Oscars
And:
No comments:
Post a Comment