As far as I’m concerned, Sunday’s “slap heard ’round the world” is fodder for commentary and mockery until “Saturday Night Live” opens its next episode by making fun of actor Will Smith and comedian Chris Rock.
I’m not interested in who was right and who was wrong in the aftermath of the Academy Awards fracas, or if Smith should be punished for his roundhouse, open-palm slap.
My interest lies in the details and nuances of the exchange. To dig deeper into this subject, I consulted an expert in throwing and absorbing punches: Essex Media Group’s most-popular employee Frank Mitchell.
Mitchell pointed out that Smith’s (6-feet, 2-inches) head-lowered, shoulders-forward posture, as he beared down on Rock (5-feet, 10-inches), telegraphed to the comedian that the star of “Men in Black” and “Independence Day” was about to get physical.
With a smile plastered on his face, Rock set his feet and shifted his weight forward, but — as Mitchell noted — he kept his hands by his side even as Smith hauled off and smacked him.
To his credit, Rock (who, I’m willing to bet, has been hit in the face before) held his ground, and Smith didn’t wait around to see what the smaller man might offer in response.
Let’s get honest: If any of us “normal” people slapped someone in the face and managed not to get the ever-loving tar whaled out of us, chances are good the police would get called; we would get arrested or summoned to court; we would have to hire a lawyer; our names might get into the newspaper; we could get fired (some employers don’t look kindly on workers who assault people — on or off the job); and we would be looking at a future that included court appearances and, probably, a civil suit filed against us.
Those worries don’t seem to occupy the minds of multimillionaire entertainers. After delivering his slap and a brief remark about his wife and Rock’s mouth, Academy Award-winner Smith danced the night away, and Rock headed to Boston for six sold-out shows.
I grew up in the era that predated school mass shootings when occasional fistfights were part of attending school. For the record, I hated fighting and steadfastly cast myself as Luxembourg on the schoolyard confrontation map, making sure I had friends who could play the role of Great Britain or France when Germany and Russia got in my face.
That said, I think the most amusing part of the Sunday Night Follies was the way an event populated by a bunch of “woke” and diversity-enlightened beautiful people descended in seconds into a caveman confrontation.
Leave it to the great Denzel Washington to play peacemaker in the aftermath and spout a line that sounded like something from one of his better movies: “At your highest moment, be careful: That’s when the devil comes for you.” A hundred Hollywood scriptwriters couldn’t have concocted a better line.
A lot of people have offered viewpoints about the reason and supposed justification for Smith’s slap. But the reality in any physical confrontation is that once a punch is thrown and a blow is landed, reasons and justifications go out the window and the only thing remaining is the consequences.
If you ask me, Smith and Rock will probably co-host next year’s Oscars and show up decked out in boxing gear. The rest of us are well advised to weigh the consequences — some of them irreversible — that come from yielding to emotion and resorting to physical violence.
