The Many “Entanglements” that led to “The Slap Heard Around the World”
Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Rock, the Black Community, and all the dirty details that lead up to the Oscars outburst.
Kareem Abdul Jabar put it best when he wrote in his essay that Will Smith “did more damage than to Chris Rock’s face. With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community.”
In this article, we’re going to break down a lot of things about this entire scenario so buckle your seatbelts, it’s going to be a long one.
First, the actions of Will Smith–
In two minutes, Will Smith changed his public image and his career forever. He’s made entertainment and social history in a way that will be brought up for years to come. It overshadows his win and lifelong accomplishment. But what Will Smith did was a prime example of toxic masculinity. Millions of young Black men and boys look up to Will Smith and what message does this send? That we can’t take jokes? That words should be met with physical violence?
Here’s the thing about being a POC celebrity. Even if you would like to only represent yourself, you do not. You do not have the luxury of just being you. You carry the weight of your people with you everywhere you go. You set the example. You are the face of your people so any idiocy you do resonates and ripples throughout your community inwards, and reinforces what people outside of your community think of your community. It reinforces good and bad assumptions for those who already have stereotypes and biases about you. That’s just the way of the world.
In just a moment of violence, Will Smith stole the spotlight from so many beautiful moments of others as well. Lady Gaga and a frail and aging Liza Minelli, CODA’s big wins for the deaf community, many Asian firsts at the awards, and so on. These things that should have been celebrated and been joyous for so many who are underrepresented having their moments were overshadowed by the toxic masculinity and fragility of one man.
Additionally, the resounding aftershock is how it perpetuates and continues negative stereotypes about the Black community and Black men being violent. It unravels the work of many Black men and Black organizations that have been trying to dispel that stereotype. It will leave an impression for far longer than the bruising on Will Smith’s ego.
Then there’s the privilege, the audacity, and the entitlement of Will Smith in that moment. Will from West Philly would have been charged with assault and hauled away in handcuffs for hitting someone, but Will from West Beverly Hills knows that nobody is going to touch him. Will from West Bev lives a life of privilege and protection that Will from West Philly and the majority of Black men can’t even fathom. Oh the privilege money and detachment from the everyday person can give you.
Second, Jada Pinkett Smith’s part in this–
She is not a victim, nor is she free and clear of what happened either. As the news unraveled and we got more information, more and more became clear that all is not well in the Smith household, no matter how much “love and healing” she touts on her show.
Initially, when the joke was told, the camera pans over to Will and Jada. Will is seen clearly laughing, but the displeasure and anger on Jada’s face was evident as well. Then you see Will look over at Jada, and a second later, he’s storming the stage.
That is some heavy overcompensation there if you ask me. Ultimately, yes, Will is 100% responsible for his actions, but it does feel like Will was actually saving himself from the hell he was going to catch back home. Earlier in the night, Regina Hall had made a crack about the Smiths’ marriage, and I think Chris Rock’s joke–tame as it was–was the nudge that pushed it over. Will couldn’t go up on stage and slap Regina Hall. That’s instant cancellation for hitting a woman; but Chris Rock, he’s a dude, and therefore, okay to hit, right?
But what was also telling was that as Will is walking back from the stage, Jada is caught on camera laughing at the assault.
Over the last couple of years, Jada has been very forward with spilling the beans about her marriage on her show. And yes, oftentimes, Will is a participant. The public knows far more than it needs to know and Black Twitter has been joking about the Smiths’ relationship for years now. One could argue that this oversharing was done to be “relatable.” One could also say this was a narcissistic act to garner attention and sympathy. But what any reasonable, mature person knows is that if you want to fix your marriage, the fewer people involved, the better. Don’t share your woes with millions of people.
In the Red Table Talk episode where the Smiths discuss Jada’s relationship with August Alsina, even though they laugh and joke, it is pretty evident that there are some raw and hurt feelings still there, especially from Will’s side. At one point, he even says something like “I'm gonna get you back” and then laughs it off, but the undertone is that he’s not joking at all.
If you pay attention to the words used as well by Jada herself, it’s a lot of “I and me” language, where the entire experience is about her feelings alone. It does not actually show any compassion or empathy towards the two men who were also caught up in this mess. There was no real moment of apology for hurting Will. She goes on to say she needed to help Alsina because she needed to do something that would make her feel good. August Alsina, at the time, had addiction problems, had autoimmune problems that affected his health, and was looking for love and support, but Alsina is also 21 years Jada’s junior. He was actually her son’s friend. This too speaks to an imbalance of power.
She’s rich, she’s in control, and she has far more life experience. Alsina is a lost, hurt, and lonely young man, but he was good for her ego.
The language she uses to describe him is also negative and contradictory so that the relationship from her side sounds so much less serious and actually devalues Alsina. Alsina though has said that he really loved her and he gave her his all. Again, in listening to the way each ex-lover talks about the other, Jada’s language is still centered on her, while his language is also centered on her. And when she talks to Will at the Red Table Talk, again, the majority of her language is again lacking compassion for her spouse and is about how she alone was feeling and needed to use helping Alsina as a way to feel good about herself but does not actually acknowledge any of the harm she may have done. She even stubbornly refuses to call what she had with Alsina a relationship. Instead, she pushes the “it was an entanglement” narrative.
The relationship lasted two years. That’s a long time for an “entanglement.” In the episode, Will had to corner her into admitting that it was a relationship. That too is telling. Why is it so hard to admit the truth?
Jada has always come off to many as having a hard edge and taking herself too seriously. She seemingly cannot lower herself to apologize for the hurt she’s caused her husband (via her own show); and even given that, she also has no qualms about publicizing their troubles either.
Listen, if you’re going to put your marriage on display, you better have a thick skin and not get mad when the court of public opinion starts talking. It’s a fallacy that people think celebrities can’t keep their relationships private. Hundreds of celebs keep their marriages private. They don’t go on talk shows and share all the details. Hell, nobody knew what was going on in their marriage until they decided to open that can of worms themselves.
Additionally, she’s implied on a few occasions that Will Smith was an inadequate lover, making love to her as though she were “a little girl.” She’d also implied that Alsina had larger equipment than Will. All of this was shared with the public.
Honestly, I don’t know how any man could stand this much humiliation and stay with a woman. The further down this hole I went, the more pity I had for Will, but also I felt my own frustration for him as well. The Smiths preach unconditional love, but that starts to sound like emotional manipulation and gaslighting to keep an unhealthy relationship going. This man was being called a simp by many in his own community because of this oversharing by his wife.
Jada Pinkett Smith displays a lot of characteristics of narcissism. Another trait of narcissism? The inability to let go of perceived wrongs. In 2016, Jada boycotted the Oscars in the “Oscars so white” thing that was all over Twitter that year. In response, as host of the Oscars, Chris Rock snapped back about how she “weren’t even invited,” meaning she wasn’t meaningful enough to the industry to be invited thus her boycott was pointless. This, I think, had built up resentments and stewed for her all these years so that chip only got bigger and Chris Rock saying even the most benign thing about her would have been seen as cataclysmic.
We see a lot of this type of behavior with Kanye West, the poster boy for toxic narcissism, as well. In his recent sad little meme, he pulled in Taylor Swift as an enemy when Swift hadn’t muttered his name in years in a squabble orchestrated and started by West himself. Swift also had absolutely nothing to do with all of West’s current troubles either.
If Rock’s 2016 comment was still bothering the Smiths, it could have been handled much better with words than with slaps. If Will wanted to defend his wife, in his acceptance speech, he could have been much more effective in shutting up Chris Rock with his words than with his hands.
In the days after, Jada released a message that it was “the season for healing and I am all for it.” Funny, does that come before or after you laughed at someone being assaulted by your husband?
And her son, Jaden Smith also tweeted “And that’s how we do it” in response to the incident at the Oscars. So using violence to resolve your slights is how your family handles problems? That is also not helpful in dispelling stereotypes.
Is Will Smith just a poor victim of a toxic wife?
Hm, not really also. She probably is the Queen supreme in that household. And yes, he very likely does love her more than she loves him. Sure, I’m speculating, but it does seem like he’s the constant chaser and she’s the one with the carrot.
In their interviews, they even talked about his insecurities and how he wasn’t number one to her. They talked about how special her love for Tupac was and how Will felt overshadowed and how devastated Jada was when Tupac died. Second place is a really tough place to be in a relationship, knowing that your number one has stronger feelings for someone else. And now that that someone else is dead, it’s near impossible to compete with a ghost.
And going back to their Red Table Talk, it isn’t hard to see that he isn’t completely over her actions either. He very obviously is still hurting from it, and compound that with the last few years of being the butt of many emasculating jokes, I’m sure it was hard to silence it all out and not have that become internalized.
And here’s Will’s fault in this too. His stubborness. His refusal to call it quits even when it is obviously tearing him down. That trait and commitment are admirable, sure, but only to an extent. I come from a culture where divorce is still heavily frowned upon, but even we admit that sometimes when the misery and pain are just too much, you gotta let it go.
It’s been years of ridicule and jokes about his marriage and his family now. It’s definitely affected his self-esteem and his sense of manhood. How can it not? A wife that has had multiple very public relationships or affairs or entanglements or whatever you want to call it over the years and has no qualms about talking about it with everyone and putting it out on social media, that has gotta bruise something fierce. If Will were a woman, public pity and sympathy would be attached everywhere he went, but because Will is a man, that embarrassment and probably shame erodes his sense of manhood.
It was only a matter of time before he snapped–but Chris Rock should not have been his target.
I understand his commitment to wanting something different than what he grew up with and to breaking the cycle of abuse and a broken marriage. He has been vocal about feeling helpless and ashamed of not being able to help protect his mom from his abusive father. I get the psychology behind why he so adamantly holds onto the convictions of wanting to make it work, but perhaps what he also needed to work on was recognizing that oftentimes, as children of abuse, we fall into some partner traps that mirror our parents. It’s so hard to see that part of ourselves.
They’ve shared anecdotes about their relationship in their dating days. In one instance, Will is holding his son Trey at a party, and Jada screams at him to “Shut the fuck up” in a room full of 20+ friends. The couple then exited the room where he put down the ultimatum that that could never happen again or they were over, but that’s just one example. It’s not to say that women shouldn’t be bold, but that level of disrespect from any partner says a lot. Sure, in time, with age, counseling, and maturity, they’ve very likely changed and grown, but it doesn’t mean that those issues are fully resolved. And I’m sure Will isn’t a saint either.
Will’s display at the Oscars, in my opinion, was a mix of toxic masculinity, overcompensation, and saving his own ass. He knew the dog house was waiting for him if he didn’t do something. That pressure, especially if it is coming from an anxious and painful place, can be overwhelming.
And yes, perhaps there was a touch of narcissism in there too. That stubbornness and will to hang onto something that’s bad for you literally speaks more about him than about the marriage. And if the attempt was to shut people up about his wife, his actions have done the exact opposite because now they are even more laughed at via memes and the internet. In the days to come, comedians will also not be sparing their feelings.
Will Smith has overshadowed all of the hard work of his career to live in internet meme infamy forever. Even the “apology” that was released by Smith sounded like it was written by a PR team and felt impersonal and disingenuous. It was not one-on-one with the man he struck, and as of now, reports are saying that Will has not reached out to Chris.
Immediately after the Oscars, the Smiths were also photographed and seen at an afterparty dancing and laughing the night away. Distasteful and makes his entire acceptance speech look like an act.
When a tornado meets a volcano–
Jada has admitted that she never wanted to be married, but felt pressured to by family. Will is a traditionalist when it comes to marriage. Jada wanted an open relationship. Will did not.
Both of them are pretty strong-willed. Will stubbornly does not believe in divorce. For him, he wants marriage to be forever, despite the fact that he’s been divorced once before. His first wife was the one to file for divorce.
These are all facts from them.
There are just some things that make for a successful union. One of those is that you both agree on lifestyle and your approach to marriage. Yes, marriage is hard work, but fundamental differences like these are guaranteed to build toxicity and hard feelings and resentments as one tries to control or maneuver the other to stay within each preferred boundary.
Somethings you can disagree on. Pizza vs salad. But it should be common sense that you need to agree on boundaries, lifestyle, and style of commitment to each other.
Open marriage–
A lot of people argue that “they have an open marriage” so therefore “it’s not cheating.” My understanding is that in polyamory, there has to be absolute trust and honesty. When that trust and honesty are not there, it is just plain old cheating, and they have both admitted that plain old cheating has happened in their marriage. That’s a hurtful and hard place to rebound from. Most couples can’t do it and the relationship is never the same again.
Alopecia and disability–
There are a lot of people screaming and crying about how “Jada has autoimmune, how dare someone make a joke about her alopecia.”
Listen here. These are the facts that we know coming directly from Jada herself.
- She’s never said she has an autoimmune disease (to my knowledge and through my searches)
- She has said, over and over again, that her alopecia is a result of weaves and tight hairstyles done too often over the years, hence why she is now an advocate for Black women wearing their natural curls. This is why alopecia is also such a common issue with Black women, because of the social conventions and trends in hairstyles that have damaged their hair for decades now. However, that is another loaded topic for another day and it goes deep into race, misogyny, society, and a whole barrel of other things.
- There are many versions of alopecia. Alopecia literally just means the loss of hair and balding. It can be caused by many things including genetics, hormones, pregnancy, autoimmune compromise, and yes, trauma to the scalp via too many chemicals, too tightly braiding, etc. Technically, Prince William and Prince Harry both have alopecia because male pattern baldness is alopecia. It has nothing to do with autoimmune disease. Chemo/cancer patients get alopecia. That also has nothing to do with autoimmune disease. Jada Pinkett Smith has alopecia and thus far, it also has nothing to do with autoimmune. She is not “disabled” as so many want to claim. She’s healthy as far as we know. She just fucked up her hair and it’s all self-inflicted.
Alopecia areata is the version that is autoimmune-related. If Jada had this, we’d see patches of scalp and skin that have no hair follicles in it, and it does not often afflict just the hairline. My sister is autoimmune compromised and she had alopecia areata. Her hair fell out in dime-sized patches in random spots. This isn’t what we see with Jada at all, including when she shaved her head live and showed it to everyone.
All of the reports online claiming that her condition is alopecia areata are unsubstantiated because as far as I know through all of my scrubbing of Google, she has never confirmed that is what it is. She has only said it was because of heavy pulling and damage through the hairstyles she’s had over the years.
Calling what she has a “disability” is a disservice to people with disabilities, particularly because this is self-inflicted baldness. If she has a disability because of baldness, then so do 80% of men over the age of 50.
Chris Rock and the joke–
In my opinion, the joke was lame and mild. It didn’t warrant that kind of response. Chris Rock has been far more offensive many times over. If you wanted to cancel Chris Rock, it should be for his anti-Asianness. Also at the 2016 Oscars, his distasteful stereotyping and using little Asian kids as the butt of a joke was far more offensive. Would it be cool if an Asian comedian did the same thing with little Black kids as props? Nope.
And then at this Oscars, Chris Rock also intentionally mislabeled a South Asian producer who’d won an Oscar as another race as a “joke.” Okay, I get it, you just got slapped, so maybe you’re still in shock, but maybe not since a lot of these jokes are rehearsed and written ahead of time.
Either or, there’s a lot more to be offended by than a bald joke. Comedians have been making bald jokes since forever, including Will Smith. Will Smith has made bald jokes about men and fat jokes about women. Jada herself had said just a few days earlier that she didn’t care what anyone said or thought of her shaved head, so now everyone’s confused. Funny thing how the internet keeps receipts.
The joke could have been turned around to be positive. Rock literally just said, “Jada, I love ya. GI Jane 2, can’t wait to see it.” It was a reference to her shaving her head, not even about baldness, per se, but about the act of her shaving her head. In the movie GI Jane, Demi Moore shaves her head, but more so, the movie is about a woman defying odds to be as tough, as competent, and as badass as her male counterparts in a Men Only world. GI Jane is badass. Demi Moore was badass in the role.
So is it really insulting to be called GI Jane? Or maybe someone’s skin is too thin.
Regardless, Rock was an absolute pro about the whole situation. He remained calm and kept his composure when many men would have swung back. He kept the show going and did his job. Whether you find his style of comedy and roasting funny or not, violence is not the answer.
And in conclusion…
Lessons to take away are that some of these celebrities overexpose themselves and it’s literally nuts. Also, when fixing your marriage, don’t publicize all your details. Violence is not the answer, especially not against words. When you have a spotlight, be thoughtful of your actions because it reflects on more than just you.
And yes, I understand that all of these are just my speculations, and how dare I. “Leave Britney alone” and all that.
Wow, this was long, and hey, you made it. Cookies for everyone.
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