LOS ANGELES.- After years of declining viewing figures, the Academy were desperate for more people to watch the 2022 Oscars.
They tried all kinds of ways to boost ratings – big stars, live performances, charismatic hosts, a new category and cutting the craft prizes down to edited highlights.
But in the event, a comedian telling a joke and a Hollywood A-lister’s furious over-reaction to it would ultimately be what seized the world’s attention.
The Academy wanted eyeballs.
It has got them now. Prior to Sunday’s ceremony, it was widely expected that Will Smith would win his first-ever Oscar, for his performance as the determined father of Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard.
What wasn’t expected, however, was that he would go down in Oscars history for an entirely different reason.
Awards ceremonies are ripe environments for crazy moments.
Think of Kanye storming the MTV Awards stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech; the wrong best picture winner being announced at the 2017 Oscars; or politicians having drinks poured over them at the Brits.
But it’s hard to recall a more shocking and violent moment than Will Smith smacking Chris Rock in the mouth, a clip which has already been viewed hundreds of millions of times in the space of just a few hours.
“I think it brings new meaning to the term punchline,” Rebel Wilson joked at the Vanity Fair after party.
“I’m lucky I got through the Baftas unscathed.”
Wilson made light of the fact that Smith wasn’t present to collect his best actor prize when she hosted the Bafta Film Awards in London earlier this month.
“Will Smith won for King Richard, but I thought his best performance over the past year was being OK with all his wife’s boyfriends,” she joked from the stage, a reference to the couple’s apparently open relationship.
After an audible gasp from the crowd, the Australian comic added: “What? Come on, he didn’t show up.”
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, who have been married for 25 years, have previously spoken publicly about their extra-marital romances.
During one 2020 episode of Jada’s US chat show Red Table Talk, the couple sat down to address public speculation about an alleged affair Jada had had with R&B singer August Alsina.
“I got into a different kind of entanglement with August,” she admitted during the discussion, confirming that she and Will were “separated, amicably” at the time.
“An entanglement?” Will replied with a raised eyebrow.
“A relationship,” she clarified.
Their open and honest discussion was praised by some viewers, but the couple have also been mocked for their ambiguous relationship status and Jada’s tendency in particular to air private family matters on her talk show.
And yet, despite their on-again-off-again romance, the pair have never divorced and there has never been any doubt about Will’s devotion to his wife and his family.
That devotion, together with the public’s struggle to understand his complex marriage, perhaps explains why the actor was riled by Wilson’s comments at the Baftas.
But it wasn’t their relationship status that Rock was mocking on Sunday.
It was something more basic but potentially more painful than that – Jada’s appearance.
It was not the first time he had made a joke at her expense. In 2016, Rock hosted the Academy Awards in the year of the #OscarsSoWhite scandal, which led to Jada snubbing the ceremony.
But, as Rock humorously (and correctly) pointed out: “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!”
Six years later, he mocked her again.
Except, this time, she was in the audience to hear it.
And, unfortunately for Rock’s jawline, so was her husband.
“Jada, I love ya,” he began, adding: “GI Jane 2, I can’t wait to see it!”
This joke was a reference to the 1997 US war drama GI Jane, which saw Demi Moore shave her head to play Jordan O’Neil, the first woman to undergo Navy Seal training.
– BBC.
