Encore Will Smith: A Slap Full of Love

It's an Encore episode just in time for the 2023 Oscars!  Let us take you waaaay back in time, all the way back to last year, March 2022, when a certain actor slapped a certain comedian and shook the world.  You know the Oscars are going to mention the slap - so here's a friendly recap of what happened to get you ready for Hollywood's biggest night!

 

If you haven't heard, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock across the face during the March 2022 Academy Awards.  If he had done naked cartwheels across the stage, naked and on fire, we couldn't have been more surprised.  Chris had made a joke about Will's wife's shaved head, and Will wasn't having it.  At first, he laughed, and then just mere seconds later (and one eye star from his wife) he strode across the stage and slapped Chris Rock, a comedian, across the face for telling a lame joke.  If only we all had such power - Look out, Amy Schumer! 

Will apologized for the incident - twice. Once a few minutes after the slap while accepting his academy award for best actor.  The second time on Instagram, a day later.  The first time he apologized to the Academy, everyone in the room, everyone watching on TV, and Everyone in the world (but excluding a certain Mr. Chris Rock).  The second time he apologized directly to Chris Rock.  Everyone in the world had a lot to say about it, everyone except Chris Rock who is keepin' it classy and writing a comedy show about it (note from 2023: his show is now on Netflix - we called it first!). 

Anyway - Will justified his love of slapping by saying he was a fierce protector of his family.  Just like Richard Williams, the guy he portrayed in the film that was the reason he won best actor at the Oscars - he was fiercely protecting his wife's honor from low-level humor.  Richard Williams answered by condemning the violence and saying that Will Smith was in the wrong.

And somehow, because of all of this slapping nonsense, Venus and Serena Williams are once again on the "Hollywood making you feel worthless" tour.  First, just the previous week, Jane Campion told them, while accepting the Critics' Choice award for Best Director for her film The Power of the Dog, that since they don't compete against men they aren't really "competing." The Williams sisters smiled and graciously let the insult pass them by.  But then Will Smith slapped any chance they had at celebrating the film about their father by using their father as an excuse for slapping a comedian for telling bad jokes.