THE SLAP

The more I think about the modern history of the West, the more I believe it should be divided into two eras: BWS (Before the Will Smith slap of stand-up comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars in March 2022) and AWS (After the Will Smith slap). It was a moment when the star-studded ceremony had a hole punched through it, as Smith shattered the illusion of the Hollywood dream and brought it crashing down to earth in spectacular fashion.

To this day, it still shocks me that, later that same evening, he won the Oscar for King Richard and was supported and applauded by his peers—when it's clear he should have long been escorted out of the building by security. His acceptance speech was a sniffling assortment of pathology that psychologists, both amateur and professional, would have a field day with.

Smith’s moment of madness even relegated the shocking scene in George Cukor’s A Star Is Born (1954)—when a drunk Norman Maine (James Mason) accidentally slaps Esther Hoffman Howard (Judy Garland) at the Oscars—to second place. The difference, of course, is that the Smith/Rock incident was real, whereas the Howard/Maine moment was not. But in a world that still (just about) saw stars as removed from the frailties and brutalities of the rest of humankind, Smith's shocking behaviour was a sober reminder that they’re as fucked up as the rest of us.

Not only that, but Smith’s outburst broke the fourth wall between their glittering world and ours, with the sound of flesh hitting bone and all the sweary aggression of a real-life pub brawl—except these guys weren’t in a pub; they were at the Oscars.

Of course, there have been some oddball moments in the history of the event, but nothing as brutal or as excruciating as this.

It was less a case of a Fresh Prince and more of a fallen one, as Smith’s win for King Richard (the story of the complex father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams) earned him a golden prize but, it seems, cost him everything else in the process.

"Heavy lies the crown", it seemed—though, in the words of Rupert Pupkin: 'Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.'"

In this rare instance, Smith may have managed to be both.