In this the time of the internet, with all kinds of information at our fingertips, the Oscar night event of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock across the face on live television is probably now considered old news.

But in case you live in a cave and only have enough WiFi signal to check my blog once in a while on the off chance I might have posted something, at the Oscars on Sunday, March 27th, Chris Rock, was presenting the winner of best documentary, or was about to, when he made a “G. I. Jane” joke.

“G. I. Jane” is a 1997 movie staring Demi Moore in which she is training to be a navy seal and shaved her head.

“GI” is a term used to describe soldiers and airmen if the US Army and Air Force, and their equipment. Often an abbreviation of Government Issue or Ground Infantry. This info has nothing to do with the joke.

Chris Rock was making the joke in reference to Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith. Jada has been vocal about sharing and accepting and embracing her medical condition in which she loses her hair, called alopecia.

Now, it’s unclear whether Chris knew she had been shaving her head because of the condition or not. The limited about of reading I’ve done hasn’t indicated.

But Will decided to take it upon himself and make his way onto the stage to slap Chris across the face. When he went back to his seat, he shouted for Chris to “keep my wife’s name out your mouth.”

This is not verbatim.

Apparently Will later won the award for Best Actor for his role as Venus and Serena Williams’ father.

Also, apparently, Chris Rock has made jokes about Jada Pinkett Smith since she decided to boycott the Oscars once before, in 2016. Her reason for the boycott was because of the lack of diversity. Also Will was apparently snubbed by not being nominated for his role in “Concussion”.

My opinion? Will Smith is overly protective and allowed himself to act on impulse instead taking it in stride. Honestly the whole thing was so bonkers the majority of people thought it was staged.

Ratings for the Oscars has gone down over the years, and they’ve tried to fix that. I wouldn’t put it past anyone for creating something to talk about.

Also, Chris Rock maybe should have thought things through before making the joke? I don’t know if he wrote his own bit or if the show’s writers did it for him. But in times such as these words are taken seriously but also with a grain of salt. You cannot be to careful with what you say to someone.

Also if you watch videos of the entire thing very carefully there is a moment where Will laughed. Now, maybe he saw Jada’s eye roll and thought he needed to stand up for her, but there was definitely a moment when he decided it would be just fantastic to get in front of hundreds of people and millions of viewers and smack another man.

Jada could have shrugged it off and let it roll off her, but instead she rolled her eyes and kept quiet. While I praise her for not making a fool of herself like Will did, I do wonder if maybe she reamed him for his nonsense later.

And there’s gotta be something said for just letting it go and not making it a bigger deal that what it is. The entire thing, from joke to slap. The internet has gone buck wild over it and that’s all I’ve seen since it happened.

Now, Will did apologize TO THE ACADEMY for what he did, while he was accepting his award for Best Actor for his roll in “King Richard” (a movie about two famous women’s DAD). Oh and the other nominees. He also mentioned being called to protect his family and the other actors involved in the making of the movie.

Perhaps he recognized that what he did was I bit off the rails, perhaps he just knew that the internet was going to find it highly entertaining.

What I hope is that perhaps a bigger conversation is had that maybe defending or protecting your loved ones from something that might make them upset or uncomfortable in some way doesn’t have to include violence, like straight up slapping someone on live television.

Or perhaps conversations about things like Alopecia and why Jada shaves her head.

Or maybe even that there is an opportunity for a new “G. I. Jane”. GI Jada. Maybe she wouldn’t be bad in a 25 years later version. There’s a lot that’s changed in the world. It could address some of the harsh realities of women in the Armed Forces, and what they’ve had to go through that’s come to light of late.

Maybe I need to read a more detailed synopsis of the original?

But it is safe to say that Google searches for Chris Rock, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith have all gone up over the last few days.

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Thanks for reading!

-c

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Speaking of eye roll, back when I was a lot angrier and couldn’t control my mouth as much, I was in trouble and in the management office and my manager caught my eye roll. I’ve been much more careful with eye rolls since. FYI don’t eye roll someone when they’re looking at you.

Also I’ve always wanted to shave my head.