ARCHIVES: In taking the law into his own hands and responding in a violent way to Chris Rock, Will Smith modelled the worst excesses of modern pop culture — broken, out-of-control and narcissistic.
One week before Hollywood, Nigeria hosted a different kind of Oscar moment. At the swearing-in ceremony of Charles Soludo, former Governor of the Central Bank and new governor of the most commercially significant southeast states, the wife of the outgoing governor, Ebele Obiano, staged an unusual drama.
Bianca’s slap rocked social media. Even though she responded by claiming she had acted in self-defence, questions are still being asked about what kind of example she had set, whether she did not go too far and whether, in fact, the public had not been unfair in judging Ebele’s record. Unfortunately, comedians, like most creative people, get paid to trade not only in others’ foibles, quirks or pet peeves, but in their misery as well. In his final days, Saddam Hussein served an Iraqi cabaret a death sentence for making him the butt of their jokes. For years, South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma was the subject of scathing jokes and was crowned with a showerhead by Zapiro, a cartoon caricature from the president’s testimony during his rape trial.
I don’t think there’s too much disagreement about whether Rock’s joke on Jada crossed the line. Alopecia, a general term used for any form of hair loss, is not a laughing matter. While the disease is not medically serious, sufferers endure different levels of psychological discomfort, which like talking about periodontal disease or tooth loss in the presence of the elderly, can only compound their misery.
Unfortunately, however mildly the Academy may have responded to this embarrassing moment of one black man striking another on stage, it just feeds the prejudice of a few who would use the incident to justify sleepwalking on demands for a more diverse, inclusive Oscars. Will Smith didn’t help Jada either. His action, like the unintended consequence of all chivalry, is to portray women as weak, defenceless and incomplete without male approval and protection, even when it is as foolish and needless as it was in this instance. In restraining himself after he was slapped, Rock looked the more admirable of the pair in the disgusting spectacle, somehow redeeming himself even in his moment of insane ribaldry.
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