O what a night
The 94th Academy Awards should have been a joyful occasion and a huge moment of celebration for women in particular. It was hosted by 3 women (they joked that they were cheaper than 1 man, I guess you have to laugh about the gender pay gap or else you would have to weep in frustration). Jane Campion was the third woman (ever!) to win best director, for The Power of the Dog (yes, that’s 3% women winners versus 50% of the population…) and director Sian Heder took home best picture and best adapted screenplay for Coda.
But what was the first and only thing we all saw in the post event coverage? The story of a man who physically assaulted another man who made a (not nice) joke about his wife’s haircut.
Did anyone else share my profound sense of discomfort and confusion when you first saw the video of Will Smith running on stage to punch Chris Rock, then shouting to him to ‘Take my wife’s name out of your… mouth’, then returning to the stage to pick up his Oscar for best actor and defending his actions in the name of love?
I initially felt confused because it seemed that this incident was being presented to me with Smith in the role of big strong hero defending his woman and I was supposed to swoon in response, but I was instinctively very uncomfortable with this take. I think we can all agree that Rock’s joke was out of order (and also that it wasn’t funny btw, almost as serious an offense), but how in any evolved world is violence an acceptable response to misjudged attempts at humour? In my world, a person who commits physical assault is removed or even arrested, he doesn’t get to stick around, pick up a prize and make a speech - what message is being sent about how we view violence with this response? And whilst I’m sure that witnessing Jada Pinkett Smith’s struggle with alopecia is upsetting, why the need to claim her so vigorously and possessively as ‘my wife’ - surely this was about Jada as a free standing person, not about him as the big male protector of his woman.
What do I wish had happened? I wish Rock hadn’t said this awful thing. I wish Smith hadn’t turned to violence in response. I wish someone had responded in the right way, with the right words to make the joke as small and pathetic as it was. And I wish we had been able to focus instead on the power of women in the film world, instead of on the misplaced power of a man.